


The Hangover

by buckyjerkbarnes



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (oblivious as in... well. ya'll know the trope), ALL THE FLUFF IN CHAPTER 9!!!!, AU, Alternate Universe- No Powers, Artist!Steve, Avengers assembled in Las Vegas, BAMF!Nat, F/M, Humor, M/M, Oblivious!Steve, Stripper!Bucky, Ya'll, also!!!, but it's a bachelor party, dad!bucky, everyone is done with everybody, i had to put them in here somehow, i needed to start on something light after civil war like wow hello, i seriously didn't beat up alexander pierce enough like omg, i wanted to squeeze them in, it takes a minute but this is mainly a steve/bucky fic, peggysous is brief ya'll, really it's just a clusterfuck, so it's expected???, there is mention of drinking, they're my otp man, they're only in chapter 6, thor/jane is only mentioned not actually shown, warning for non-con drug use in chapter 8, who left tony in charge??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 17:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4400255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyjerkbarnes/pseuds/buckyjerkbarnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Nat are getting married; Tony Stark, of course, plans the bachelor party. In Vegas. What could go wrong?<br/>(Famous last words.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Call

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've ever written and posted on this site so please be kind and comment and kudo me :) You can hit me up over on tumblr at fypoedameron for more marvel crying and various multi-fandom related shenanigans!

**_____**

Pepper had warned him.

She was some sort of all-knowing entity, his wife, who had straight up told Tony not to go to Vegas. Sure, he was being kind in throwing his money around for Clint, as it wasn't everyday one of his friends decided to get hitched; he'd been excited at getting Steve's uptight ass out of that art studio he was so intent in spending every waking moment of his life in, and his dear science brother Bruce tagging along? That was just a bonus.

He didn't count on  _this_.

 _This_ was him being the poor schmuck stuck talking to a livid Natasha Romanov, the fiery ginger who could kill him with her thighs (literally). Steve, the massive shit, had bolted across the road to hold back Bruce’s hair as the older fellow vomited his guts out and Thor, the dumb bastard that sold them bad drugs was too much a ray of sunshine to battle Nat’s wrath. He didn't even know her, anyhow, and while Tony may be an asshole, he wasn't going to sick Nat at her angriest on the literal walking humanization of a perky puppy.

“Anthony Edward Stark, I've been trying to reach the four of you _all day_ ,” came her low, growling voice crackling on the other line. 

 _Act cool. Just act cool. You dealt with that crazy interviewer Everheart, you  can—fuck no you really can’t, can you?_ “Hi, Mrs. Barton- or are you two doing the whole double last name thing? Will it be Romanov-Barton or Barton-Roman-” _Not cool, not cool— fuck—!_

“Don’t bullshit me, Stark: your wife is a good friend of mine and that aside, I’m clever enough to kill you and make it look like an accident.” Tony had no doubt about that. He was postive she'd been a child operative for the KGB during the end of the Cold War as it was. “Now, where is Clint? Hmm?” Her tone screamed that if he took longer than oh point one seconds to respond, he’d be a dead man.

They could perhaps be dealing with two deaths.

“Ah,” Tony said, dragging the flat of his hand over his face. He had blood dried to his palm from where Fury’s crazy ass eagle landed a swipe at him. “We really fucked up, Nat. Like I’m talking a  _Crocs_ level of fucked up.”

Patience, it seemed, was not one of Natasha’s strongest traits, but Tony had known that from the day he’d first crashed at the Romanov-Banner household in his freshman year of high school to do a science project with Bruce. He’d ran into Natasha, accidentally bumping her shoulder, only to find Natasha cutting the crotches out of his underwear he’d packed to stay overnight ten minutes later. The sweet smile she gave him, though. That was enough to have him wearing the same pair of briefs for, like, two days. Pepper loved Natasha, though, so Tony normally bit his tongue if he had a problem. “Tony, cut the crap.  _Where is he_? The wedding literally starts in five hours!" 

Bile, sharp and acidic, stuck in Tony’s throat like tar. He had to tell her. If it was that close to show time already, then that meant it was nearly ten as the wedding began at three. He prayed to whatever Gods felt pity for screw-ups like him that Natasha wasn't capable of shooting him several hundred miles away. Tony didn't want Pepper to have to bother with the insurance struggle _that_ would be. “We lost him. We lost Clint.”

“You did  _what_?” Natasha snarled. She was still real quiet but the growl in her voice was no less potent. Honestly, Tony had expected her to scream bloody murder or in the least reach through the phone’s speaker to rip his throat out. Something like that. The sun was glaring down at him over head; dust had stained his pants legs and his shoes an ugly yellow. It reminded him a bit of Clint's hair. 

 _Aw, man, we're so screwed,_ he thought miserably. The sun was still glaring. The heat became more oppressive around his ears as though that was its way of agreeing.

Across the road, Bruce threw up again. 

**_____**


	2. Road Trippin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not wearing a purple suit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so everyone knows: the Bruce in this story is Mark Ruffalo's Banner and Betty is the lovely Liv Tyler. I've taken the liberty of extending the timeline of the story where, in the film, everything happens in about two days, but as it's Tony "rich as God" Stark, he's taking his boys out for nearly a week. Happy reading!

**_____**

 

**FOUR DAYS PREVIOUS**

 

“No.”

“It’s this or red, Stark, and you know that would clash with Nat’s hair.”

“ _No._ ”

“ _Tony._ ”

“ _Future Mr. Romanoff.”_

Clint sighed, wincing when the tailor’s otherwise steady hands slipped and a pin pricked at his side. “Tony, please.”

“I’m not wearing a  _purple_ suit.”

“You have no problem wearing those god awful sunglasses with the pink lenses.”

“You’re right, I don’t! Because it’s my own choice and not the choice of the Red Army's leader!”

The blond couldn’t hold back a laugh seeing as Tony stood in his tighty-whities, hands on his hips with a tailor navigating around him. Stark looked ridiculous, with the deep purple material draped over his shoulders and secured slimly at his waist: Steve would have snorted, Bruce would have sighed, loud and drawn out. “For the ten millionth time, my wife-to-be is not a Soviet spy. Yeah, she and I worked in intelligence before we got the hell out, but our allegiance is totally to America." 

"Yeah, tell that to her father, Rasputin!" 

Alright, Tony had him there. Ivan Romanoff was one terrifying motherfucker and Clint had been in the CIA for twelve years, faced several walking nightmares in that time, and still nothing compared to Nat's dad. He had yet to figure out just how Mrs. Banner had married him, given she was the sweetest, most serene thing on the east coast, ranking in just over her son. Her homemade pizza was what sealed the deal, though, and kept him coming back for Nat, or so  _she'd_ say. His stomach snarled just thinking about it, mouth quirking into a smile at the thought of his bride.

Somewhere, though Clint didn't like to think of the precise location, Tony pulled out a baggie of blueberries, offering him one. 

He took two blueberries. 

The tailor poked him in the hip on purpose for eating so close to such 'fine material'. 

**_____**

"Bruce?" 

He grunted unintelligably. "Bruce," Betty said again, all soft blue eyes and straightened black hair. She walked into their joint study, brushing a pair of fingers over his cheek. "Sweetheart, have you packed yet?" 

Pealing a sheet of paper from where he'd slumped over his desk, rucking a hand through his hair, Bruce grumbled again. "That's not for another two days." Betty huffed a laugh. "It's not for another two days,  _right_?' 

"Today is Tuesday," she told him patiently, and he loved her all the more when he saw she had a cup of steaming coffee in the hand not in contact with his skin. "Which means tomorrow is Wednesday, which-"

"-is the day I am bodily dragged to Las Vegas because Tony wants to host the 'bestest bachelor party to ever exist in this life and the next five'," Bruce finished, curling his fingers through hers and bringing her knuckle to his mouth to drop a light kiss on the central ridge. He felt like sighing. Loudly. Perhaps through a loud speaker.Though Bruce loved Tony a great deal, he knew better than anyone that if one looked up the word difficult in the Webster's Dictionary, his "science bro" and "platonic life partner's" photograph would appear next to the definition; pair of peace signs, goatee, and all. Betty knew, too, seeing as her and Tony had both gone to MIT and it was thanks to Tony that they- he and Betty-met.

(He also knew, better than anyone, just how good of a man Tony really was beneath the layers of charisma, snark, and his tendencies to throw money at things he cares about.)

"Steve's going, right? And Clint will be there, too, obviously," she assured him, tugging out his rolling chair so she could perch on his lap. Betty was light, like a bird. Bruce smiled, just a quirk of his mouth's corner. 

"Yeah, I know." Bruce went still, the only piece of him still in motion being his thumb, rubbing tiny circles over the inside of Betty's wrist. "I just want everything to go well. For us  _and_ for Nat." 

Natasha's mother had died of a shrapnel induced injury out in the field (though of which organization, Bruce remained unsure) and his own father had succumbed to lung cancer. He didn't smoke, which was something Bruce had always found ironic in the most painful way. Ivan Romanoff and Rebecca Banner had met in the cafeteria of the same hospital in Manhattan: Bruce had been nine, Natasha just seven years old. He loved her like a sister and after all they'd endured? She'd nursed him through his first hangover (they had smuggled some of Ivan's vodka up to their rooms: Nat won the drinking contest they'd been having), he rubbed her back the first time a boy broke her heart (he had beaten the snot out of the guy; Natasha broke his nose), and while it did not come out often, Nat was the only one besides Betty would could bring him down from his anger (she called angry Bruce  _the Other Guy_  fondly). He liked Clint and he could see plain as day just how much they adored one another: he wanted things to work out as best they could, because Natasha deserved that much. 

"It  _will,"_ his wife said, smacking a kiss to his temple, right in the place where his curly hair was starting to silver. "If anything, Pepper, Nat and I will hold the fort down." 

He grinned, wry. "God bless the Females." 

Betty chuckled, plucking his glasses up from behind him on the desk and perching them on the bridge of his nose. "Female or no, it isn't my job to pack  _your_ suitcase. Come on, Mr. Banner." She hopped off of him, but not before he could haul her down for a lingering kiss. "Bribery is not going to get you a damn thing." 

The shot had been worth it. 

**_____**

 

**THREE DAYS PREVIOUS**

 

"Now Clint, I trust you, I do-," Ivan sent a grimace over Clint’s shoulder at Tony, who was admiring the silver 1965 Mercedes-Benz with the sort of expression that belonged in the bedroom.  "-so I wish for only you to drive Anastasia, yes?" 

 _Anastasia._ That was the name of the car. Ivan's  _baby_. Clint nearly threw off a salute. "I know, sir," he said, nodding.

"And only if it is an emergency, Bruce or Steven may drive." Another narrow of his eyes. "Tony... just don't." 

He worried his hearing aid for something to busy his hands, sending a _help me please God_ look to Nat, who was talking low and quick with her brother. Seeing as years of ops had sharpened her senses, she was a red haired angel in a leather jacket when she cut the conversation quick, kissed Bruce’s forehead, and fell in at his side.

She tapped out a message in Morse against his back: _you look like a scared cat._

His mouth twitched, a bit of sweat gathering under the rims of his sunglasses.

“Daddy,” Nat said, her typically dry voice going a bit high and sweet. “You know Clint would never put a scratch on Anastasia. He respects you and knows of your extensive array of weapons. Isn’t that right?” She batted her eyelashes at him, tipping her face up to pear his way.

Ivan was literally putty in his daughter’s hands. Small mercies. “I know, дорогая _._ Just…” Ivan’s eyes, dark blue orbs, fell on him. “…be safe, yes? You're family now.”

Clint gave him a smile, taking the proffered car keys out of his broad hand. (One of two hands that would have no problem torturing him if he laid one bad finger on Anastasia.) “Always, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Rebecca gave him a hug, her thin arms soft and firm. She patted his cheek. “Keep the boys in line, will you?”

Normally, it was Steve who did such a thing, the responsible army Captain that he was, but as Steve still needed to get picked up… “We’ll be good, Momma Romanov!” Tony called, already sitting in the driver’s seat. Ivan made a choking noise.

He turned to his future in-laws and he leaned in conspiratorially: “I’ve got one of those little backpack leashes that you put on two to five year olds to keep them from running off. We’ll be fine. _Really_.”

And, after another few moments of small talk, the Romanov-Banner duo went to give Bruce their goodbyes. Nat let out a little huff into his neck. “Do you honestly have a backpack leash that can wrangle, Stark?”

Clint grinned. “It’s got a monkey on it.”

The sound of her laugh warmed him from his hairline to the tips of his toes. He wanted to ask her if she and their smelly yellow dog, Lucky, would be alright without him for a few days. Nat was a better shooter than he was and could take down men (and women) twice her size in under a minute, armed or no. He wouldn’t have to worry (except that he would totally worry anyway) about her safety being compromised. Besides—she’d probably be with Betty and Pepper most of the time.

Nat smiled, her lips pulling back to flash him a hint of teeth: he loved the way her pearly whites were a little cramped together on the bottom. “Hey,” she said, low and soft.

“Hey,” he said back, equally low and soft.

“Go have fun,” Nat murmured, flattening a hand right over his small hourglass necklace. He looped a finger through the chain of her silver trinket, smiling when the little arrow caught the light just right. “You sap.”

“I’ll call you every night,” he proclaimed, brushing a lock of her hair from her face in order to tuck it behind her ear.

“No you won’t. You will be a full-fledged bachelor with the boys and you won’t think about me one bit until you’re putting on your tux Saturday morning.”

Clint felt his entire face soften. So many people believed that Nat was some soulless, emotion-lacking demon when she was actually the best thing to have ever been created. Yeah, her humor was dark and her behavior could be abrasive, sure, but none of them knew Nat sang Russian lullabies to Clint in the hospital when he’d get hurt on the field or how he caught her doing a series of fluid, graceful ballet moves in the kitchen when she thought he’d gone to take a shower. How she was a total dork for action movies (the more explosions, the better: that's probably why she liked Michael Bay films so much) and if it was a song from a Disney flick? She likely knew the lyrics by heart. He loved her so much.

He told her so, since he was a sap, after all.

“Am I breaking the rules by thinking about you right now?” he wondered, bumping his nose into hers.

Her mouth pursed so she wouldn’t smile, her eyes brightening. “No,” she mumbled. “Because I’d be breaking them, too, technically.”

They kissed, her hot tongue parting his lips and sneaking inside— “DUDE!” Tony called from the passenger seat this time, startling them apart. Nat tightened her small hand in his shirt, pulling him in for a last couple of chaste pecks. “We’ve got to pick up Rogers!”

Shit. Clint darted in to catch Nat's mouth once more, touching her cheek with the very tips of his fingers. "See you on our wedding day?" 

"I'll be the one in white," Nat confirmed, giving him a firm push in the direction of Tony and Bruce, both of which were already buckled in and waiting. 

 

**_____**

 

For the life of him Steve couldn't figure out what else to put in his lesson plans for his kindergarten class next week. They'd covered water colors and blessedly washable markers, but he wasn't stupid enough to let them handle acrillics or oil pastels. And charcoal? That would be asking for a clusterfuck and for the elementary's school janitorial service to never leave his room again. 

"What about clay?" Sharon wondered, perched on a stool and kicking her legs back and forth as Steve slowly descended into  madness.

Clay. Clay in the hands of five and six year olds? 

"That... is actually the best thing I could have chosen." Steve rubbed a hand over his forehead, turning his face so he could look back at her. She'd stopped in after her all-night shift in the Infectious Disease Ward, changing out of her scrubs and into a set of pajamas she'd left in a drawer in his bedroom. Her hair was still styled and what little makeup she did wear impecable. 

They'd been on thin ice for the last month. He loved her and she him, but whatever spark had pulled them together long since flared and has been snuffed out. 

He jotted down:  _clay, idiot. Let them mangle a few blocks of clay,_ tucking his pens away into their pouch. 

"You have your running gear?" Steve had packed a couple pairs of sweatpants and his tennis shoes, knowing he'd have time to kill when the others were nursing skull-splitting headaches. He nodded. "I know you were pouty the last time..." she fell quiet, taking a deliberately long sip from her cup. "Steve..." 

He straightened, hands flattening to his desk. "Yeah?" 

"I know how these things go," Sharon murmured, not quite meeting his eyes. "It's a bachelor party and with Stark in charge, there's bound to be strippers left, right and center-" 

"Hey. No-," he moved to touch her arm, but she turned away, giving him a view of her stiff shoulders. The curls she'd done up the night before were nearly straight again. "-we're not going to any strip clubs, Sharon. And if we did, you know I'd be the first to leave with Bruce on my tail and Clint not too far behind him. If there's one person Tony respects more than anything, it's Pepper: there's no way he'd-" he recieved an _you're fooling yourself, Rogers_ lift to Sharon's eyebrow, her mouth thinning at the corners, "-well, okay. He _would_. But he'll have Bruce, Clint and I to frog-march him out." 

He tried to touch her again, a press of his palm between her shoulders, and she let him this time. 

“What time are the hooligans supposed to be here?" she wondered following a stretch of terse quiet, taking another sip of her coffee. The mug had the Stark Industries logo on it's side. 

Steve glanced down at his watch only for the roar of an engine to roll up to the curb outside. He peaked an eye through the blinds, mouth nearly dropping at the sight of Mr. Romanov's Mercedes idling  _outside the domain of Mr. Romanov's garage._ He wondered just how much Clint had to grovel before his soon-to-be-father-in-law let him take  _that_ car, especially on a trip to Vegas and shuddered, because where Nat could be scary as hell, Ivan was somewhere on  _The Godfather_ level of intimidating. Life father like daughter, he supposed, red hair and all.

Through the open window and over the engine’s hum, he picked up a sound similar to that of a bullhorn being turned on. “PAGING MR. ROGERS!” boomed Tony’s voice. Steve flicked two fingers between a pair of vinyl blinds again, quirking his eyebrow as Tony was  _standing_ in the passenger’s seat, one hand on his hip. In the back, Bruce was pinching the bridge of his nose: Sharon threw a bottle of asprin in his bag. “MR. ROGERS THE CHILDREN ARE WAITING!”

He closed his eyes, glancing over his shoulder at Sharon. Her lower lip was pinned between her teeth to keep from laughing, the tension between them disipating. “Do I have to go? Are you sure I can’t just stay-?”

Sharon jumped off the stool, plunked her mug down, and padded up to him to pat his cheek unsympathetically. “It’s Clint’s bachelor party. You would lose  _so_ many bro points if you didn’t show.” She leaned in to chastely kiss his cheek, a barely there touch. “Have some fun- lesson plans can wait.” A pause. " _We_ can wait." 

What did she mean by that?

His attention was interrupted sharply by: “PAGIN-!”

Steve knew exactly why it was he’d chosen Sharon Carter when she leaned out the window, hands cupped over her mouth and shouted: “STARK, YOU CAN FINGER PAINT ON YOUR OWN FOR A MINUTE: MR. ROGERS IS PUTTING ON HIS PENNY LOAFERS NOW!”

“YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT!”

Steve gave a quiet chuckle at Sharon’s flushed cheeks and her satisfied grin. He tugged her in for quick hug, covering her mouth with his. She was the one to pull away, smoothing a hand over his shoulders. _We can wait_ echoed in his head, a terrible tune set on repeat, just as grim the second, third, fourth, tenth time as it was the first. "Go on, Soldier. See you in a few days?" 

"I won't be late," he promised, thinking of their old joke, scrambling to tug loose ends into tight knots. 

"I know," Sharon murmured, walking him to the door and giving his hip a little bump with her own. He didn't have a chance to say he loved her- _we can wait_ - as she edged the door shut the instant he was in the hall. Steve didn't exactly know what to think of that. He'd call her whenever they stopped for gas, make sure she was alright. 

He jogged down the steps, bag in tow, held the door open for a woman and her daughter who lived two floors down, and right up to the waiting car. Steve shut all thought of doubt and of Sharon away, clearing his head and his expression. The sight of his friends made him smile.

Tony tipped his glasses down the bridge of his nose and let out a cat-call as sat down, throwing an actual bullhorn into the backseat. “Boobs on point, Rogers. As always.”

Without missing a beat, Steve retorted dryly: “Did Clint draw on your face again or did your upper lip get put through a blender?”

The Stark heir touched his goatee, smirking. They'd known each other long enough to find fondness beneath the quips. “Good to see you, too, Rogers.”

"Always a pleasure, Tony.” Steve tossed his bag into the trunk, slapping the top closed. He climbed into the backseat beside Bruce and was immediately passed a Coke; Bruce had been away from all sorts of alcohol ever since the Great Destruction of Harlem ’09. 

Clint aimed a car-sized air freshener at both of them, one spritz each. “Alright, the scent of-,” he glanced at the label, brows raising, “-some  _really_ smelly fru-fru shit should dissolve all the testosterone.” His eyes, hidden by his typical violet tinted shades, seemed to lock on Bruce. “You okay back there, bud?”

Bruce shot his soon to be brother-in-law a smirk. “Right as rain.”

Buckled in and groaning softly when he leaned back into the leather seats- "Dude," Tony said, giggling _,_ " _I know._ "- he glanced up to the fourth floor, third window over, and found Sharon standing where he could see her. He gave her a two fingered salute. She did not return the gesture, instead, turning away and moving further into his apartment. Steve let his head flop onto the seat's back.  _  
_

"Everything okay?" Bruce asked, running one finger around the rim of his red Coke can. He'd barely moved his mouth and had spoke so quietly, Steve knew Tony and Clint hadn't heard them. Clint flicked on his right turn signal, breaked for the stop sign. Four vehicles rumbled by and then they were heading off and away from his street. 

Was everything "okay _"_? So much for filing his problems away for later. He and Sharon, when they'd first got together, had been very physical. Litle touches here and there, kisses on the streets for no reason at all... They'd not slept together in both meanings of the word for over a month and a half; there were no excuses for that. Except, they always made them. Steve had been promoted to the team leader of the "specials" teachers at Brooklyn Heights Elementary, leaving him with double the work he normally would have; he'd started tutoring a handful of third, fourth and fifth graders who were interested in sketching twice a week for two hours after school. He ended up staying till at least six each night, made a round to the gym if he could, and had bar nights with the three men in the car and Sam Wilson, his partner during his Army days, his best friend. 

But Sharon was always at work, taking on extra hours at the hospital. When she would drop in to see him post-shift, she'd practically collapse on his couch or his bed and wake only when it was time to do it all over. And Steve understood that money is a rare thing and whenever one can get it, they will. He doesn't hold that against her. Sharon also visits her aunt in the nursing home upstate every Saturday, without fail. Another thing that Steve understood: family is everything. He and his Ma still have Sunday brunches, rain or shine, snow or storms at their favorite diner in Brooklyn.

They had time for everything but each other. He realized that now. He wanted to tell Clint to turn the car around, get him to drive Steve back to his place so he could talk to Sharon in person, rather than over the phone with miles between them. It feels like the end. Perhaps that was good? He wished she'd have just let him go right there in his living room that way he'd have several days to get his mind straight. He had no doubt they would still remain friends: Sharon wouldn't hate him if he had the first word and vice versa if she got to say it first.

 _We can wait_. A last dance before the lights come up and everyone is made to leave the dance hall. 

He turned off his phone, sliding it into his pocket. Out of sight, out of mind, and  _breathed_. "Right as rain, pal," Steve said, cracking a half smile. Bruce patted his back. 

A quick route through the city, a few red lights. The interstate spread out ahead of them, ushered quickly on by a bunch of piss-poor drivers zooming right past Clint. Apparently, one of the rules of Ivan Romanov letting Clint use this car were to go ten under the speed limit. 

"Now, Clint. I'm going to walk you through this. You're doing great," Tony said seriously, faint exasperation rolling off him in waves. "You've already got this beautiful baby started and in drive. What you need to do now, is put your foot on the gas." 

Without even taking his eyes off the road, Clitn flipped Tony off. "You removed your hand from the wheel: that's minus five on your driving exam." 

 

**_____**

 

It took fifteen minutes before Tony became insufferable, a new record for the man, as normally, Steve wanted to back over him with a steamroller in the first three. 

"Steve." 

"Don't you just love the open road?" he asked Bruce, looking anywhere but at Tony, who had gone and turned around in his seat to talk more directly at them. The car's top was down, leaving Tony's black hair whipping and flying around: Steve had no doubt he'd get a kick out of the bird's nest look Tony'd have by the time they actually arrived in Vegas. 

"Yeah. It's great," Bruce said, brown irises flicking only briefly to the front seat then shooting away just as quick. 

" _Steve._ " 

"How's Betty? I haven't seen her since Pepper's birthday lunch a couple weeks ago-" 

" _Steven Grant Rogers_." 

Bruce's mouth twitched. "She's very well, actually. She's been experimenting with a couple of new chemicals in her lab. We're thinking about doing another collaboration."

When they reached a stretch of road mostly void of people, Clint tapped the breaks hard, sending Tony's face smacking into the seat. "Sit right," the dirty-blond said, his middle finger twitching as though he wished the throw Tony the bird. Again. 

Begrudgingly, Stark did as he was told. 

For all of twelve seconds. 

"Oh captain, my captain?" Tony prompted sweetly.

Clint flexed his hands around the wheel. Steve was surprised as anything he'd not taken out his hearing aids, his go-to plan whenever a conversation began to irk or generally annoy him. "Just give it up, Steve. He might shut up if you do." 

"Appeasement never works. History taught me that," he grumbled over the wind. Two tours, Steve had served. He had a purple heart for valor: he did not deserve this.  

He could feel Tony looking at him in the rear-view mirror, detected his elation before it even left him. "Come _on_! Do something stupid, Rogers! You’re so tight that-”

“You quote  _Ferris Bueller_ one more time, Stark, I swear to-” Steve broke off with a sigh, sensing a lost battle. “Fine!”

Steve waited until he saw a minivan, the typical vehicle out of a suburban neighborhood with three teenage girls piled in the back and one either very misfortunate boy or a very happy one sitting in the seat in front of them. He undid his belt, twisting so he could lift his shirt partially over his head until the car could see only his chest and not his face.

He waited a long moment before settling back down, huffing. “Happy?”

Bruce let out a noise that sounded like a cat being strangled only to point over Steve’s shoulder where the three girls had slapped a piece of notebook paper to the window.  **NICE TITS _,_** it said in all caps.

Clint nearly wrecked the fucking car from laughing so hard.

"I hate you all," Steve moaned, sinking low into his seat. 

 

**_____**

 

Tony treated them all to pizza in some dumpy road-side place that looked like it had never come in contact with a health inspector. Still, the food was good and Clint sent a selfie of himself to Natasha, slice of pepperoni pie held up beside his face. None of them saw the photo she replied with, but Clint's smile was like the rising sun, so it must have been something else.

They had to stop for gas just outside of Kansas City. 

"I think Tony's imprinted on my Dad's car," Bruce murmured, watching out the convenience store window as Tony leaned against the vehicle of the moment and handled the gas nozzle. 

Clint had pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head, three packs of beef jerky in his arms. "What makes you say that?"

"You see that older man over there?" Indeed, a white haired fella was skirting around Tony like he had the plague  _and_ swine flu. Steve nodded, as did Clint. "He got too close to the car and I'm pretty sure I saw Tony  _growl_ at him." 

Steve grabbed a bag of ranch Doritos, plucking up another when he saw they were two for three bucks. "Ha," Clint snickered, flicking his gaze between Steve and the chips. "A Dorito buying Doritos." The all-mighty eyeroll Steve gave him could very likely be detected from space, if not all the way back home in Brooklyn. A camera shutter whirled. "What?" Clint asked. "Nat'll eat this up." 

"Not as quick as Steve will those Doritos," Bruce murmured, off-hand, stepping up to the counter and depositing his array of waters and chocolate bars. Steve took the beef jerky from Clint and ushered Bruce aside to place his chips among the other purchases. 

When the total popped up, he paid and shot them both a small smile, a smaller shrug. "Thanks for having me. I know I haven't seen much of you both..." 

Bruce's eyes softened and Clint clapped him across the shoulders. "Don't worry about it. You're here now and we're going to have so much fun, our children's children will feel it." 

The woman working the cash register quirked an eyebrow. 

They took their food and fled, not allowing Tony the opportunity to grimace at a small child who just so happened to nearly trip and caught the front bumper of the car to keep from falling. "I'll call Pepper," Steve threatened, jabbing a warning finger Tony's way. 

There were grumblings about how democracy was dead and something concerning big titty blonds needing to shut their mouths. Still, he sounded fond.

 

**_____**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ivan called Natasha "my darling": please correct me if the translation was a bad one!  
> Okay, I know it seems like Steve and Sharon are a thing (and while I have nothing against the Staron ship, this is the SS Stucky, SO) I swear: one/two more chapter(s) then a certain brunette will be cropping up and rocking our boy's world :) (spoiler: he's not an amnesiac this time yay!!!) Will update soon...


	3. Hawk's Eye View

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Anyone else smell cheep coke and booze?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright ya'll: our boys are in Sin City, which means things are about to get REALLY complicated. Honestly, this is just a filler chapter to bridge where we need to go plot-wise, so that's why it's taken me so long to crank it out. Seriously, sorry for the wait!

**_____**

 

Nearly ten hours of driving and two more pit stops under their belt, they reached Las Vegas at nightfall, where the city was just coming to life. While it was something else, yeah, it sure won't New York, and something about that thought settled snugly in Steve. They passed the knock-off Eiffel Tower, even a Statue of Liberty not even half the size of their blue gal up north, "ooh"ing and "ahhh"ing at the Bellagio's fountains spouting high as a skyscraper, bobbing and reaching into the atmosphere. 

"Anyone else smell cheep weed and booze?" Tony asked when they turned onto the flashiest strip of road Steve had ever seen (and he'd been to Times Square on _New Years_ ), his nose wrinkling. 

As one entity, Bruce, Clint and Steve raised their hands, though Clint only a little because he didn't want Tony to give him more shit.

"I think I just saw Elvis," Bruce murmured wryly, head twisting to look behind them. 

As Tony was Tony and Tony was quite extravagant, he'd booked them a top floor room at Caesar's Palace. He took great pride in informing them his father had nearly owned the casino and though he never did, there was a portrait of Howard Stark framed behind the front desk, gilded gold frame and all. Tony had his eyes, which the petite receptionist noticed immediately when she went about reviewing their reservation. 

"Booking for Tony Stark, three nights. Wake up calls at noon, right?" 

"Yes, ma'am-," a look at her name tag, "-Jane." 

Jane smiled, tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear. "That will be forty-two hundred for tonight." 

The groom to be let out a groan. "Aw, Tony, no!" 

"Aw, Tony,  _yes_!" Stark retorted, pulling out his black credit card and passing it to Jane to swipe. She was quick to explain nothing was paid for yet, not until they checked out on their last day. 

Steve, though every bone in his body wanted to argue about just how much money was being spent, as he'd done up the calculations in his head and figured their entire stay just at the hotel would over nearly seventeen thousand dollars, he knew doing this for Clint, for them, meant a lot to Tony. That didn't even count the room service and probably some sort of spa thing for relaxing that Tony would insist they take part in, either. There would be gambling, too, for that matter. Steve's head swam with dollar signs, his wallet, stuffed with about one hundred dollars, his license and his Met membership card, burned in his back pocket. If Bruce worrying his shirt sleeve was an indication, the salt-and-pepper haired man was on the same line of thinking. 

"Tony..." Clint tried again, low and almost pleading. 

The instant Tony had the thin plastic rectangle back in his wallet, he turned to Clint, brandishing the set of key cards the receptionist offered him. "I'm not getting emotional with you in this lobby, Barton. I am the leader of this mission, I am bank-rolling this operation, and we will all have the best bachelor party of our lives, okay? Is that too much to ask?" 

"But all this  _is_ too much..." 

Tony huffed, looking pointedly at Steve. 

"I think my line here would be 'just give it up, Clint. He might shut up if you do'," Steve reasoned, smirking when Tony grinned, hitching his bag higher up on his shoulder.

They moved with a pack-like efficiency towards the elevators, shuffling through the heavy night crowd and right up to an empty lift as the metal doors parted. Tony, the first inside, smacked the button for the top floor.

"I've stayed here before," Tony told them, giving them all pleased looked over the rims of his ridiculous glasses. "This villa is the nicest on the strip."

" _Villa_ ," Clint echoed, faintly. 

Before the dirty blond could go and object, the doors were opening and Tony had slid his arm through Clint's, tugging him down the gleaming hall and to the door all the way at the end. "Welcome," Tony said, sliding the electronic card through the lock, which flickered from red to brilliant green. "To Vegas." 

They fanned out once they were inside, gaping at the amount of space, the open, glittering floors. Just the living room was larger than Steve's current apartment; hell, glancing to the right showed an expansive wing of doors, stretching out some thirty yards before breaking off to the left and the right. He could fit every house he'd ever stayed in within the walls of this place and fought a smile at the sight of Tony helping himself to a Coke at the stocked bar, perfectly at ease. A bathroom was lit up, all marble and cream; a grand piano- which, Steve had no idea why any of them would have need of a piano- was nestled beside the floor-to-ceiling window, where the neon lights of Las Vegas winked teasingly at them from below. A large, L-shaped leather couch was the dominant piece, with a glass coffee table at its center. Plants were tucked aesthetically in the corners of the room, just to fill otherwise empty spaces. 

"There's, like, ten bedrooms," Clint announced, striding back into the main area with wide eyes. "Tony, we could have made to with two double beds." 

"See, that's where you're wrong, bird brain. We could  _not_ have made do with two double beds because two double beds do not meet my standards of Best Bachelor Party Ever. This?" he waved a hand at the space around them, then, smirking, at the shelves upon shelves of full liquor bottles. "This is more like it."

All too soon Bruce suggested changing in order to grab a bit of grub, leaving Steve to slide into his own room- one of the more plain, smaller suites out of the many to chose from. He slotted the door closed and leaned against the wood for a long second, just long enough to catch his breath, and tugged his suitcase over to the queen bed, a plush, plastic-looking thing that was so neat it almost made Steve wince. He was a generally well-kept guy, any sort of sloppiness knocked out of him with the military, but places such as these always made him stare a bit harder at himself in the mirror, trying to straighten what creases remained in his clothes, tighter tie up any loose ends.

Alone, his mind immediately turned to Sharon.

Steve? Steve did not want to _wait_.  

The truth of the whole raw, pulpy matter was that Steve loved Sharon. Past tense. Well, present tense. Past. Present. Tenses. _"_ "Gah," Steve hissed, undoing the zipper of his suitcase and searching for the crisp blue button-up his Ma said really brought out the color of his irises. As of two months ago, he'd planned on asking Sharon to marry him, had this whole elaborate plan of taking her to the place where they had their first date and reliving that sweetly-awkward night, a bright one in his memory. That idea had been drop-kicked out the window with the recent behavior on her part, with the actions hers were influencing him to make. 

He thumbed on his phone, watching the little logo glow for a moment before the background loaded. Steve typed in his pass code, 3-3-2-5, and launched the messages application to fire off a quick text to Sharon.  _Made it to the hotel. Getting ready to head out for dinner._

Back in New York, it was just after ten, as the digit clock on his device claimed it to be seven-thirteen. Sharon didn't have work, or at least, she had not mentioned any shifts for that evening. When she did not work, she tended to reply quickly. Steve took his time undressing, carefully choosing a pair of khakis and brown loafers, tucking his shirt into the hem of the pants. He sat down on the foot of the bed to tie the leather laces of the loafers, ignoring the silence from his phone the entire time. 

And by ignoring the silence of his phone, Steve was totally staring at it as he got ready, waiting to lunge forward the instant the screen lit up with a text notification. 

It was a small thing, but it added to the pile of little changes that created one large worry with an even bigger, inevitable conclusion waiting to be executed.

"Steve?" Clint and Tony were in the doorway, watching him. He had no idea when they'd opened the door, when they'd arrived in his vicinity. Both were giving him calculating looks, not unkindly, as he patted down his hair with a comb he'd dampened in the attached bathroom. Concerned was the word. "Dude, I called your name like six times. What's up?" 

He put on a false smile, one that tasted bitter and worn around the edges. "Nothing," Steve said, tucking his cell phone into the back pocket of his slacks. 

"You can't lie for the life of you," Tony said. "Even if you  _are_ dressed like  _the_ Mr. Rogers." 

Clint hit Tony in the side with the butt of his elbow, clearly stamping down on a twitch of his lips when Tony grunted. "Seriously, man, what is it? We're your friends." 

"Do we need to have a come to Jesus? I think we need to have a come to Jesus." 

The words, literally, broke out of him without his permission:"I think Sharon and I are going to split," Steve confessed quietly, brushing a heavy hand over his face. Resolutely, he did not look at Clint in the mirror, tugging up the collar of his shirt as he pulled on his charcoal gray suit jacket, smoothing it out once he'd done up the bottom pair of buttons. "And I'm not even upset about it." Alright, he was back to lying again. He wasn't hurt, exactly, as he'd been waiting for the metaphorical penny to drop for a while now, but the thought of people  _pitying_ him over their break-up, of the smothering comfort he knew his friends would offer, Steve felt himself tense further. 

He tried not to read too much in the way Clint's face did this _stuttering_ thing, like he knew something that Steve didn't, the way he rolled the little hourglass pendant around and around between his thumb and forefinger.

"Things will work out the way they're supposed to, Steve," Tony said, uncharacteristically gentle. "Power of love and all that." The dark-haired man had donned an ivory suit and a deep navy shirt, wine-red tie secured at his neck. Those damned glasses were balanced on the bridge of his nose again. Tony cleared his throat, coming forward to briefly clap Steve on the shoulder before his face split open with a grin. "Now- who's ready to get the evening started?"

Steve shared a silent look with Tony, hoping the thanks he felt at the change of subject was conveyed. A hand was waved. Steve cracked a smile. "Where's Bruce?"

"Here!" Bruce called, poking his head in from the hall and filling the space Tony had just abandoned. He was pink-cheeked and windswept, tucking something away into the inner pocket of his blazer. "Sorry, I had to pop out for something real quick." 

"Just in time, Science Brother! Before we head down for food, I want to take ya'll somewhere," Tony's arm wrapped around Steve's shoulders, his warm, slightly damp hand curling to and squeezing the back of Steve's neck gently. He bumped his temple to Steve's then dropped all sort of points of physical contact. The weight pressing down on Steve's ribs lifted, gaining further altitude when Clint clapped him on the shoulder. Out the corner of his eye, as he was made to slide past Bruce by the guidance of Tony, he could have sworn he saw the bespectacled man mouth,  _He knows_? 

Trick of the light, Steve told himself. Optical illusion. There were plenty of those in Vegas. 

When Tony had brought up the distraction of moving the four of them from one place to another, Steve had assumed that that involved moving downstairs to be shown the flashy array of casinos or maybe to the doors of an "out of this world attraction!" there had been an advertisement for in the lobby, but, with the grabbing of wallets and phones, key cards safely stored in their breast-pockets save for Clint, who slid his in the back of his purple phone case, they turned to head to the service steps. This flight of stairs was far less elaborate than what Steve imagine the customer staircase was, if there were any at all, made of iron and creaking beneath the soles of their shoes. 

"Are we allowed to be up here?" Steve asked as the sight of a new door loomed closer and closer.

For his troubles, Tony gave a snort. "What part of 'my father nearly owned this place' did you not get through your head? Plus, I'm paying for a villa- I think there was an underlying _do as you please so long as you don't destroy property_. There's a footnote in the receipt and everything. Probably. More than likely."  

Tony shoved his shoulder against the door, an old rusted thing, grunting when it didn't give. It took the man power of all four of them, with Steve and Clint hitting the door the same time Bruce got a firm grip on the near-completely eroded lock for them to spill out onto the roof, Tony taking up the role as supervisor after he dusted off the rust flecks from his pale suit. "Well done, team. Good effort." 

"Fuck you, Tony," Clint said, a touch breathless and losing the rest of the air in his lungs as he finally took in the sight spread before them. The rush of cool, moist air was a surprising blessing against Steve's flushed skin, all thoughts of the conversation down in his room coiling up and boxing themselves away for later inspection. For now, the only thing that mattered was Clint and the fact that Clint was getting married. This was a night of fun, joy and a load of other adjectives related to a good time, no sorrow. "“This had got to be the best view in Vegas,” Clint declared, moving to the edge of the roof with his keen eyes roving over the landscape and the lights, the flashing signs and the people who looked to be the size of ants. 

“I’ll get Rhodey to take us up in a helicopter, let you see it from the air,” Tony offered, digging around in his pockets for a moment before he came up with four crystal shot glasses. He waggled them around, grinning that million dollar grin of his, and pressed one to each of their hands. "Life Partner? The goods?" 

Bruce procured a bottle of something amber from his own coat, pulling it from a brown paper bag. "That the kind you wanted?"

Tony hummed in confirmation, tipping the squat bottle at an angle so Steve could read the gold label: tequila. "Oh no," he said, shaking his head. "Tequila and I do  _not_ mix." 

"You do tonight," Tony said, unscrewing the bottle with surprising ease. Steve didn't miss the look Tony slanted Bruce's way. "Get a little thirsty on the way back over?" 

Bruce huffed, pushing his glasses further up on his nose. "You know I didn't." 

Tony shrugged. "What happens in Vegas..., well, you know the rest." With the grandeur of one who had had a great deal of practice serving drinks, Tony poured them all a generous amount of liquor, practically flailing in his attempt to fill Bruce's. Steve stilled, elbows poised close to his sides with his drink held close. Bruce had stuck to only non-alcoholic beverages for almost a decade and Steve knew his feelings about remaining clean were strong and unwavering as Steve's thoughts on how important it was to get one's child vaccinated. Come on, Bruce: half a drink. Just a half. I have faith you can handle one in the spirit of the evening." 

"It warms my soul to know just how much you believe in me, Tony," Bruce deadpanned, swirling the small shot in his hand. "Alright, alright. I give." 

"Ooh, ooh! I want to make the toast!" Tony proclaimed, holding out the bottle rather than the shot he still held. No one made a move to stop him. "To my brother from another mother, Clinton Francis Barton, who, in less than sixty-four hours, is going to commit himself to the Red Terror of all ball and chains-"

"Stark," Clint warned.

"-and is becoming the luckiest guy on earth by doing so," Tony finished, sincere and bright and flushed already though he'd not taken a sip of drink yet. "Well, second luckiest, given who I've got as a lady. May they be happy and fruitful and make me the godfather of their children."

Clint snorted. "Like _that's_ going to happen." 

Tony did not even look wounded. If anything, his smile _broadened_. He hoisted the bottle in the air, nearly sloshing a generous portion to the concrete. "To Clint!"

"To Clint!" He and Bruce echoed fondly.

"To me!" Clint beamed.  

Steve downed his shot, shuddering at the heat washing down his throat.  

It tasted funny. 

 

**_____**

 

(That was the first hint that shit was about to get real. 

He should have taken it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter after this then the SS Stucky leaves the port, I swear. Comment and kudo, please <3 Update will come soon!


	4. Viva Las Vegas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chicken strutted out from under the near-collapsed piano, clucking on its way towards the bedrooms.
> 
> Tony blinked and settled back down for a moment to re-evaluate his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The one where shit hits the fan and not even Tony is surprised. Our precious Buck-a-Roo will come in the next chapter, fret not!

 

**TWO DAYS PREVIOUS**

**______**

  

 

He woke to the sound of a door slotting shut, very, very softly.

Tony hadn't felt this type of Shitty since, like, New Years Eve 1999 when everyone was drunk off their asses thinking the computers were going to take over the moment the clocks hit 2000. The entire lining of his mouth tasted like he'd sucked on the bottom of a homeless person's shoe and his stomach rolled at the image. "Ngh," someone groaned on his left. He pealed his eyelid back all of a millimeter and hissed at the sight of sun shining on All-American blond hair. 

His leg poked out to the same vicinity, probing. He was still clothed, thank God.

" _Ngh_ ," Steve said again, king of eloquence. "I think I'm dead." 

"Nah, you're just hungover as  _fuck_." 

Steve made the same noise as he had the last two times. "Oh, god—  _you're_ here." 

"Welcome to hell, buddy," Tony said, pulling in a sour breath and letting it hiss slowly between his teeth as he sat up and fully opened his eyes despite the pulsing  _twang_ he felt in his temples. 

The entire place was  _trashed_. A pyramid of red Solo cups were stacked on the counter, liquor bottles over turned and leaking from the mouth. There were streamers and confetti and plates of unfinished food, ranging from roast chicken to some sort of dessert that was probably French judging by all the crushed berries. The couch cushions had long, horizontal slash marks, one cushion pinned to the ceiling with an arrow, the other two, Tony knew not where. Sheets had been hauled into the middle of the floor, and pillows, too, with the purpose of making a huge nest where Tony had found himself with Steve, who had yet to actually move and was resting face down in what looked like a man's hoodie, something Tony, though he was still a little drunk, knew did not belong to any of them.

A chicken strutted out from under the near-collapsed piano, clucking on its way towards the bedrooms.

Tony blinked and settled back down for a moment to re-evaluate his life.

"You still here?" Steve asked, gruff. 

Tony pinched his own thigh, just to be sure. "Yup." 

Steve rolled so he was on his back, curling into a sitting position and rubbing at his face like it had personally insulted him. He was shirtless. Tony, who was really trying not to lose his mind, blinked at the sight of—“Steve, buddy,  _pal_ , uh, since when did you have star-spangled nipples?” And he  _did_. Both of the rosebuds on Steve’s chest were colored dark blue with a silver star over the bud itself. Then there was a red ring, a white ring and another red ring that encircled it to create a shield, exactly like the one that was the logo in Steve’s army unit back in Afghanistan.

Captain Titties' eyebrows did this thing where they rose, crinkled then flattened when he detected the actual note of seriousness in Tony's voice. It was almost adorable, like a sleepy golden retriever being sprayed with a hose. Those baby blues flicked from his face to where Tony's eyes were trained. “Holy shit!” Steve yelped, his hands shooting down to clutch at his pectorals only to let out another unmanly yell at the reality of the situation. “What the—?  _Why do I have boob tattoos_?" Steve raised his head and his entire demeanor went bristly, a bomb waiting for its fuse to be lit. His eyes were accusing. "What did you  _do_?”

Tony couldn’t help it. Really, it was quite impossible to not throw back his head in a burst of cackling laughter that was so loud it woke Bruce. He climbed to his feet, nearly stumbling over in his haze of mirth that was almost all consuming, and he stopped when he was a few steps away from the distraught blond. “Well, next time I have to say the Pledge of Allegiance, I’m just going to lean toward your tits.” Tony clapped said man on the back then crossed the room to check on Bruce, who had curled up behind the couch and had a martini umbrella tucked behind his ear. “Bruce, hey buddy, you need to get up now. Come on, wakey wakey, I haven’t got any eggs or bakey!”

Bruce swatted at Tony, rolling so he lay on his stomach. His science bro was without pants, his ass hanging out from where he’d kicked off the bath towel one of them had draped over him. He was sober enough, however, to appreciate that it was a good ass. “Bruce,” Steve tried gently, rubbing his fingers over his nipples and huffing when the ink didn't lift from his ministrations, “Pal, you’re not wearing any pants.” That caught Banner's attention enough for him to flop on his side.

Steve rummaged around in the mess of sheets and cushions and he mouthed  _confetti?_ Honestly, though: where the hell  _had_  they gotten confetti? He found a pair of underwear, of which he held out to Tony with a calm, collected expression firmly in place. Tony pulled at the waistband of his pants and looked significantly  _down_. “Nope, not mine,” he told Steve, very quickly flicking the underwear away from him, and doing very well at ignoring Tony's bark of a laugh when the briefs landed on Bruce’s face.

“You guys are dicks,” Bruce muttered, raking a hand through his disheveled hair. His eyes were rimmed red and he looked worse for wear, but otherwise like a man who had had a great night partying. He, too, rolled himself into a sitting position, stood, and stared at them, glaring down at the unidentified flying undies at his feet. “I’m gonna pee.”

“Don’t hurt yourself, buddy!” Tony called, because while he may, indeed, be a dick, he still wanted his fellow dicks to be careful even while using the john.

The silence lasted for all of a minute where Tony picked up with his life pondering before Steve shattered the quiet by letting out another squawking sound, high pitched. Almost like a goose honking. Steve was just a barnyard full of animals first thing in the morning, no better than the time Tony’s nanny had seen a rat scurry across the ground in his spotless kitchen. “WHY DO I HAVE A WEDDING RING ON MY FINGER?”

Alright, this was squawking worthy. Headache aside, Tony blinked at him, owlish. “One more time?”

Steve opened his mouth, presumably, to oblige, only for Bruce to shriek from the bathroom. Tony felt like he should shriek, too, just to join the Banshee club that had formed around him. The salt and pepper haired man burst from the restroom, slamming the door shut just as quick. “There's an Eagle in the bathroom.”

Alright. Obviously, Tony had been slipped a little bit of LSD or the mushrooms in his dinner were the kind of ‘shrooms that 1970’s stoners would die for. These two options or he was not drunk enough to deal with such things. Those liquor bottles looked damn tempting… “Bruce,” he said, placating. “I’m sure you just hit your head on the toilet bowl and you got some of Steve’s patriotic boobie vibes that then triggered a haluci—”

Just then, a great  _caw!_ resonated from behind the door Bruce had closed mere seconds ago.

Steve blinked, hands falling to his side.

Tony blinked for the third time.

“Holy shit guys:  _there’s a god damn bald eagle in the bathroom_.”

Steve, ever exasperated when he got within ten rooms of Tony, much to the man’s content, just flicked his eyes between the two. “No  _shit,_ Tony.”

“Where in the fuck did we get an eagle?”                               

Bruce blinked, eyes focusing on Steve’s pectorals. “Erm, where did Steve get stars and stripes on his nipples?”

“Where did I get a wedding ring?" Steve repeated, a touch more calmer now that it seemed he wasn't the only one that had a load of issues.

“Okay, okay,  _okay_ ,” Bruce raised his hands, closing his eyes. He looked green around the edges. “Everyone breathe. Between us, it looks like we’ve got a thousand questions unanswered and a chunk of time missing,” he paused. “It’s not just me who can’t remember anything after the roof last night, right?”

Steve blanched the same time Tony swallowed loudly, both shaking their heads.

Bruce sighed, sitting down heavily on the shredded couch. “I was afraid of that. I knew it was a bad idea getting-”

"Guys," Steve said suddenly, tearing his eyes from the gold band on his finger. "Where's Clint?" 

There was blinking. A lot of blinking. Blinking hurt Tony's head. Blinking  _bad_. "Clint?" Bruce called, staggering to his feet as Steve trailed off in the opposing direction. 

"I'll try his phone!" Tony said, patting around his pockets for his phone and finding it, surprisingly enough, shoved down his left sock, the metal warm against his ankle. He swiped to the emergency screen to get the call done faster: his temples twinged at the brightness of the screen. The instant Clint's number was in, he brought his phone to his ear, his fried nerves prompting him to nibble on a piece of lose skin beside his pinkie nail.

From down the hall, the direction he'd last seen Steve, the sound of "Eye of the Tiger" started up. Clint's ringtone. 

"Hello?" 

Deliberately, Tony shut his eyes. "Steven." 

"Hey, Ton-  _this is Clint's phone_." 

"No,  _shit_ , Rogers." 

"Guys!" Bruce chimed, shuffling back into the demolished living room. "He's not in any of the bedrooms." 

Steve returned with Barton's iPhone cradled gently between his large hands, the tips of his fingers shaking slightly. "He's not anywhere I looked, either." 

"Nine times out of ten he's already gotten up and headed downstairs," Tony said, trying his best to be pacifying. Given he felt like any sudden movement could prompt a vomiting spree, his "pacifying" was more like "soft grimacing". 

“Probably down at breakfast already. Lord knows he’s not had a hangover for years since he started trying to drink Tasha under the table.”

Tony snorted, softly. “Their children are going to have livers of-"

A soft cry came from the closet.

Steve stilled, lifting his gaze from Clint's phone and staring in shock, mouth parted. "Rogers, that had better be you crying...," Bruce slapped a hand over Tony’s mouth to capture the quiet.

“Did you hear-?”

Another sniffle, followed by a wail.

They all practically rolled over each other to launch themselves in the direction of the coat closet right by the front door, ripping open the wooden slab and  _staring_. 

A baby girl, rose-cheeked and tiny and settled in a portable baby-thing Tony didn't know the name of, immediately quieted when she spotted Steve, cooing and smacking her toothless gums happily. "Steeb-ah," she beamed. 

"What the ever living  _fuck_ ," Bruce whispered. 

Tony's voice was strained around the very edges, something he couldn't deny if he wanted to. "Don't tell me you got artificially inseminated last night, popped out your spawn at dawn and she's already as big as a loaf of bread. Because that just might make me the daddy vampire from  _Twilight_. Bruce, you'd be the ripped werewolf guy that takes off his shirt all the time." 

Steve hit him hard, right in the chest, which made the baby laugh. 

A big question still lingered, though-

“Doesn’t it have a collar or something?” Tony wondered squatting down to search beneath the mountain of pastel blankets. Steve grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, ushering him away to ensure he did not do any damage or something heroic like that. He rolled his eyes.

Before Steve had any hope of giving Tony the world’s second most sarcastic reply, Bruce spoke. “It’s a child, Tony, not a dog.” He stepped in between both of them, kneeling to offer the infant a finger to suck on. “Hello, sweetheart,” he cooed gently, “It’s okay.”

“Uh, no it’s not—”

“ _Tony_.”

“—well it’s not. We’ve got a missing child, a bald eagle, and a stretch of time unaccounted for. In no universe that I’m familiar with, none of that equals okay.” He paused, shooting the pair of shields a glance. "The only thing okay here is the massive amount of blackmail I now have over your head." 

The infant let out its loudest squawk yet around Bruce’s pacifying thumb, eyes creasing into slits as its face began to redden and it kicked its feet restlessly. “Shhh,” Bruce soothed, glaring over his shoulder at Tony. His glasses were about to fall off his nose, one of the lenses cracked. “We’ll go to the police station, file a report. Surely a concerned parent is looking everywhere for this little darling.”

Tony's stomach made a sound like a lawn motor coming to life and felt a wave of queasiness rush over him. He needed something weighty and packed with grease. Pronto. "But first, breakfast." He paused. “And for the love of god, Rogers: put on a shirt. You’ll scare the baby.”  

 

\-----

 

Steve was very much aware that some sort of joke involving the movie  _Three Men and a Baby_  could be made concerning their little party sluggishly moving away from the epicenter of destruction that was the villa and to the elevator at the other end of the hall. Tony had tinted sunglasses that he'd drawn up out of the blue in the eccentric way Tony did almost everything, with the baby bouncing gently from a sling attached to Bruce's front. The way Bruce kept up a stream of soft cooing at the child would be a lot more endearing if the child wasn't considered missing and Bruce didn't have heavy sweat-stains beneath his armpits and along his collar. Steve didn't look too much better, with his shirt wrinkled to hell, hair standing on his head at a thousand different angles, and his eyes cradled by purple crescents of exhaustion. 

"Alright, seriously. Why can't any of us remember a thing from last night?" he couldn't help but prompt. 

"Shhh," Tony hissed. "Too loud. Steve no speak." 

"I don't know," Bruce sighed, looking very much like he wanted to hit Tony not out of spite, but just because it seemed the thing to do. None of them moved though; the baby girl was wriggling enough for all of them. 

"Normally, if you don't remember anything, it means that everyone had a great time," Tony piped, tipping heavily against the side of the lift, forehead pressed to the cool metal. Steve could relate on that level, as it was taking a great deal of control to keep vertical. 

"No," Steve retorted and he would have pinched the bridge of his nose if that didn’t involve movement. "It means that a lot of bad shit went down." 

"Um, does your ass hurt from the stick that's shoved up it? Lighten up, Rogers." 

The elevator slowed, opening without either of the three of them doing anything to prompt said halting movement. A woman who came up to Steve’s chest in height stepped on, dressed in neat clothes with her hair feathered delicately out of her face. He couldn’t help but flush as the woman looked to be his mother’s age and he was loathe to think what Sarah Rogers would have to say if she saw the state of them—the state of _him_ —in that moment.

"What a doll!" the woman cooed, completely oblivious to Steve’s embarrassment. She waggled a finger in that manner older folk did at most babies. Her mouth was painted a deep, rose pink. Its bright pigment stung his eyes. “What’s her name?”

“Peggy,” Steve said, the same time that Tony declared: “Beyonce.”

“I’m the father,” Bruce said, his smile strained. “Her name is Betty. These two are her idiotic, but doting, uncles. The whole Peggy-Beyonce thing is a long running war between them, you can understand.”

The woman reflected the awkward little smile back at all of them, clasping her hands together over her belly and waiting out the terse ride down to the lobby.

They ended up out at the pool, ordering food and leaving Bruce with the baby as he and Tony went about searching the gym, casino, and anywhere they believed Clint might take an interest in. “He’s not _here_ ,” Steve said, falling heavily into the seat across from Bruce and beside the baby, who was happily turning Cheerios to mush in her mouth.

“We looked everywhere,” Tony agreed, settling down. Steve could see him squint at the too-vivid blue of the pool, brows raising at the scanty bikinis most of the ladies wore to swim and sun-bathe in, only to— “Beyonce is the cutest when you keep looking at her.” The baby grinned, all gums, in Tony’s direction. He nudged her chin with his finger, earning another giggle out of her. “Bey loves me. I am her father now.”

“Out of all the names, you choose _Beyonce?_ Really?” Bruce inquired exasperatedly as Steve said, stern:

“You can’t pick a kid out of a hotel room closet and claim to be her father, Tony.”

“I can and I have,” he declared. “Besides, Beyonce is a royal name.”

Steve fished his phone out of his pocket threateningly. “I’ll call Pepper.” In Tony Logic, Steve and his wife had become the equivalent of ‘Art Bros’ as Steve was the only guy Tony was familiar with who actually preferred to go to a gallery and  _not_ leave two minutes after arriving. Steve reallyliked to spend hours upon hours strolling marble halls and absolutely loved finding a new favorite piece as up and coming artists filled the various galleries around Manhattan with new displays. He had a deep love and respect for Pepper, as they’d been close for over a decade, and, if Steve were to call, Pep’s busy schedule or no, she was bound to pick up and genuinely listen to what was leaving Steve’s mouth.

Tony’s left eye twitched. “You wouldn’t.”

“Quit calling the baby Beyonce and maybe I won’t have to.”

“Children,” Bruce said in the sort of voice he used when one of his interns was on the verge of blowing up his lab. “We’ve already got one baby at the table: we don’t need two more.” He pushed a steaming mug towards Tony. “Here’s your pacifier.” 

Tony moaned at the sight of coffee, making grabby hands for his cup and nearly knocking Steve’s over in his haste to do so. He drew a long, gasping sip from his mug, plunking it down on the table with a small strip of brown on his upper lip. “Oh _god_ , that’s good. That’s really good. I need _more_ than this. Hell, I’ll _buy_ the company that makes such—”

Steve looked to Bruce, the man of reason, and found he was staring wide-eyed at Tony’s wrist. “Tony, give me your hand.”

“Awh, Banner! It’ll be alright. Don’t be scared.” Bruce’s dark eyes narrowed, threateningly. He was a touch green around the edges. “Alright, I’ll give, I’ll give!”

Bruce jerked Tony’s sleeve up, revealing a yellow hospital bracelet with a simple white label printed on it. “You were in the ER?”

 “Huh,” Tony said, a severe lack of distress in his tone, twisting his arm in Bruce’s hold. “Guess I was. At two in the morning. _Huh_.”

“This could be good,” Steve said, nodding as a sprig of optimism bloomed in his chest. “That’s a start. We could go to the hospital, see if they remember if Clint was with us or not.” He shifted his weight from his left side to his right and felt something crinkle against his back pocket. Climbing to his feet, he dug around in his pocket and found a wrapper for a Ring Pop, torn open neatly and catching the mid-morning sun.

“Oh no,” Tony said, horrified. “Tell me you didn’t propose to Mrs. Rogers with a _Ring Pop_.”

“Wait, wait—he may be on to something,” Bruce declared. He shot a consoling look Steve’s way. “ _You_ may be onto something. Let’s all empty our pockets—see if we left ourselves any breadcrumbs.”

There was a series of squealing chairs, hard flinches from all of them at the terrible noise, and a whimper from little Betty. They turned each and every one of their pants pockets inside out, digging into anything that could hold clues—breast pockets, wallets, shoes, and so on. “Alright, I have a receipt from the Bellagio for seven-hundred and fifty dollars,” Tony announced. He nodded, as though pleased with this. “Could have made a harder hit.”

“I’ve got a ticket from the valet that says we got in at five thirty,” Bruce said, eyes wide in his face. It made the scruff threatening to grow in along his chin more pronounced, made the purple of his shirt even more vibrant. “I don’t know whether to be horrified or relieved at the fact we drove last night and _lived_.”

Steve offered: “Here’s a bill from the Hard Rock Café from ten thirty last night.” He picked through his pocket change, a stray, crumbled up straw wrapper, and a bent up soda tab. “That leaves so many gaps, still.”

Bruce covered his face with his hands, groaning loud enough to catch the attention of three surrounding tables. “I don’t even remember going off the roof.” Steve grunted his agreement to that, and, if a look at Tony was any indication, the Stark Industries heir was in the same boat.

“Well, the hospital was the closest of all the time stamps.”

“So we should go there first,” Steve surmised.

 

_____

 

Breakfast was practically sucked up in the manner of a vacuum consuming dirt—quickly and with little pause in-between. They waited for a few minutes for the young valet to bring around their vehicle, watching with a few others as, from the top of the building, a few men went about removing an arrow from the head of one of the marble statues spreading its arms over the city.

“What kind of jerk would do that?” Steve murmured.

Tony shrugged.

The valet rolled up in a police cruiser, climbing out and grinning the plastic grin of every employee thirsting for a tip does. "Here's your car, officers!" he said, bright as anything, flicking mousy brown hair out of his equally brown eyes. 

Steve stared, slyly pinching himself to be sure this was not some sort of fever dream. He clenched his eyes closed for all of four seconds, opening them to find the car was still there, Betty was still hanging from Bruce’s front, and the valet was still grinning.  

"Alright," Tony said, a touch faint. "No one say a damn word. I'm talking at you, Rogers. Not a thing. For once in your life, be  _cool_." 

“Fuck you, I _am_ cool.”

“ _Children_ ,” Bruce warned, smiling as he fished a ten out of his wallet for the valet. “Son, you were here this morning when we got in, right?”

The valet nodded. His nametag labeled him _Peter._ “Yes, sir.” He peered around Bruce’s frame to look adoringly at Tony. “Mr. Stark, I’d like to thank you again for offering me that grant with all the money and stuff. You have no idea how much it’s helping me and my Aunt May out. Like, it’s helping out _so_ much—”

Tony, in passing, gave Peter’s cheek a little pat. “You’re welcome, young grasshopper. And, uh, what grant did I give you again?”

Peter told him, still grinning widely, only now his eyes had gone wide with pure hero worship.

“Oh,” Tony said, as though he’d known the entire time. “Right. I’ll have my people call your people. Person. Peeps. Yeah. Okay, I’m getting in the car. Carry on, law abiding citizen.”

Steve took the opportunity to spin conversation to a more important matter at hand. “Peter—was there anyone else with us when we arrived?”

“Nope! Just you guys!”

Steve had been afraid of that. After a quick dismissal, which involved he and Bruce thanking Peter for all the information that he could supply, Bruce moved to climb into the back of the police car, muttering words Steve could not hear beneath his breath. He held the door open for Bruce so the smaller man would be capable of safely sliding in without hurting Betty, and shut the door firmly behind them. He, quite pointedly, didn’t make eye contact with any of the folk watching from the curb.

The instant Steve, himself, slid into the passenger seat, Tony tossed him his phone, grinning as Steve almost fumbled the device. "Download the Cops theme song- there's an aux cord with my name on it." 

"This is already fifty shades of illegal, Tony," Steve grit, watching Bruce rub the baby girl's back in the rear-view mirror. “We’re _so_ going to get arrested.”

“You only get arrested if you get caught,” Tony sang, throwing on the police siren as they tore off into Las Vegas traffic.

 

_____

 

“Yeah, I remember you,” Dr. Helen Cho said, gently knocking a medical hammer against the knee of an older man with thinning white hair and glasses. “And as I said, you—,” a slanted look at Tony, “came in with a set of bruised ribs and a couple of shallow cuts on your arm.” She nodded at Tony’s right side, her perfectly penciled brows raising when he jerked up his sleeve and saw a neat medical tape job beneath the stained material. “None of you were sober enough to tell me what exactly happened, but there definitely was no child with you at the time.”

She seemed, very much, to be biting back the urge to wonder if any of them were mentally stable enough to be handling a baby.

(Steve did not want to know the answer to that.)

“Do you, per chance, happen to recall how many of us were here?” Bruce inquired, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. Betty had lulled into a light doze, sniffling every few minutes, with her head tipped back into Bruce’s chest.

“Four. But like I told you: there was no baby… yet?”

“Well that clears the Steve’s Midnight Spawn theory,” Tony muttered, yelping when Steve stamped on his toes.

“Alright, Stan,” Dr. Cho said to the fellow she was examining. Her smile was soft and tender, her gloved hands reaching out to help him to his feet. “Stand up… there you go! Turn this way.”

And then they were exposed to Dr. Cho telling Stan the patient to turn his head and cough, the three of them, plus Betty given she was practically an extension of Bruce at the moment, whipped around so they faced the wall instead. “That is something I could have lived the entirety of my life without seeing,” Tony groused, shuddering. “That man is someone’s father. Someone’s husband. I feel violated _for him_.”

Steve stepped on Tony’s toes yet again. His cry of abrupt pain packed less volume behind it, this time.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Cho murmured, stepping up to the sink once she’d told Stan he looked healthy as a horse and had stripped off her lilac plastic gloves. She started up the faucet and beat the round of her palm against the soap dispenser for a generous helping of disinfectant. “That’s all I know. Really. I wish I could do more to help you three, er, four,” she amended with another glance at Betty. “But I’ve got a heart surgery three floors up.”

“All we need is five more minutes,” Bruce pleaded. “Just five more minutes.”

Tony, as though he’d expected the situation to lead to the obstacle in their tracks, held out a crisp pair of hundred dollar bills. “Five minutes,” he said, holding Cho’s eyes over the rims of his sunglasses. She pursed her lips, squinting at them as she calculated the paths whatever choice she made would lead her.

 It took a moment, but she finally relented, nodding for Tony to tuck the bills into the breast pocket of her lab coat.

In all actuality, it took seventeen minutes and another trio of Ben Franklyn’s slid across the counter to Dr. Cho for them to collect the information they needed: Tony had, somehow, been dosed with some sort of “date-rape” drug, though had, thankfully, not been forced into anything sexual.

Apparently, they had _all_ been slipped the drug and ran around the city out of their minds.

One of the places they’d paused at, likely wavering stupidly on their feet, was the Best Little Chapel, a gaudy, pink and white place with a steeple reaching into the clear blue sky. Right behind it, there was a sign for STRIPPERS. “Oh god,” Steve groaned, going limp in the seat and smacking his head against the window. “This has to be the least respectable place for a shotgun wedding in the entire _state_.”

“I highly doubt it is any sort of reflection on your bride,” Bruce said, ever the man gentle friend.

Tony, on the other hand, was cackling. Loudly. With enough volume to wake up Betty and send her into a wailing fit.

 _Me too, sister,_ Steve thought, hands shaking as he undid his seatbelt and pushed the car door open. “I hate you, Stark,” he snapped, shoving his hands in his pockets as he felt his face heat from chin to forehead with a flush of dread. For the first time that morning, he thought of Sharon, how he had no idea anymore what her reaction to this situation would be. More than likely, she would use this to end it with him and Steve couldn’t exactly blame her.

He only hoped that whoever it was he said the big I Do to in the late hours of the evening was someone _good_ , someone, when this was all smoothed over, that would be capable of forgiving him for being an asshole that jumped into a situation with both eyes closed.

“I love me enough for the both of us, Rogers,” Tony snarked. “  

The small reception room was filled with equally gaudy furniture; a floral couch, two faux-marble Cupid statues with little faux-marble bows, a crystal lamp with a dented shade, and a golden carpet straight out of the nineteen seventies. There was a counter with a menu of various goods that could be purchased—personalized caps for the couple, cups, shot glasses with the business’s logo on it, t-shirts, even, a cash register with a bumper sticker that declared how much it loved Las Vegas plastered on its front. Taking a left led them into a small church-like getup, with a red-velvet lining leading to a wooden altar, three lines of pews on either side.

A balding man in a shirt rolled up to his sleeves was pinning red and pink roses to a white trellis, straining against the laws of gravity to slide a stem through an opening three feet over his head.

Steve, respectably, waited for him to have his footing before clearing his throat to catch the guy’s attention.

Pale, watery blue eyes met his. A beam lit the man’s face. “Hey!” he beamed. “Well if it’s not the Avengers! Did you all miss me that much you had to come back within twelve hours?” They were approached and hugged, firmly, like they had known the guy since high school, no, since kindergarten. The man even clapped Steve on the cheek companionably, giving Bruce’s oily curls a tug. He kissed Betty on the end of her nose. When he straightened, Steve could see the name stitched into his shirt was PHIL.

“Uh…” Tony said, eloquently.

“Let me tell you, right here, right now—this guy,” Phil, the man who had apparently served as the pastor for his _wedding_ jabbed a finger at Steve, beaming widely. “This guy is the wildest man I’ve ever met. You are the craziest motherfucker outside of a mental institution.”

Tony held up his hand to stop the man in his tracks. “Wait. This guy? Mr. I-Walk-Little-Old-Ladies-Across-the-Street-and-Have-Been-in-the-Boy-Scouts-Since-Birth?”

Another nod. Phil took on an expression of bemusement. “What is it with you all?” he prompted, a touch of concern marring his brow and causing lines to form in his forehead. “We exchanged phone numbers. And Snapchats.”

“None of remember any sort of wedding going on here last night,” Steve admitted, going for the blunt card as it would get more done in less time. “And our friend Clint is missing and we wanted to know if he was here… and whom I married.”

“Whom,” Tony echoed. “Just say _who_ , Rogers.”

But Phil had straightened, any sort of joy at being reunited falling away. His mouth fell into a firm line. “You honestly can’t recall what happened?”

“No,” Bruce, Steve, and Tony chorused.  

Phil sighed, ushering them to come to the check-out counter when he had a large photo album waiting atop the glass counter. “I just finished putting it together about an hour before you walked in.” He pushed the booklet to Steve. There was no judgment in his eyes: Steve had no doubt he had probably seen cases far worse than theirs, given his line of work.

Faced with the answer to the question that had been settled in the forefront of his mind all morning, slowly eating away at him until the only thing that remained was his rapidly pounding heart, Steve found he was incapable of moving. Not blinking only made the album morph into a particularly frightening animal, snapping and hissing and packed with the threat of rabies if he get any closer.

 _You were in the_ Army, _Rogers,_ he thought. _Two tours. You’ve seen people get shot point-blank. Suck it up. Open the god forsaken book._

The shaking in his hands had started up again as Steve flipped open the white, plastic-bound cover of the photo album, knowing it to be better that he just rip off the Band-Aid to allow for maximum healing time. He felt his heart fall right out of his body cavity, twisting sharply like he’d been stabbed. He lost the ability to breathe. The room was threatening to cave in.

Bruce, ever perceptive, noticed: "Steve? Steve, what is it?" 

“Is she ugly?" Tony wondered sympathetically, dodging the hit Bruce aimed at his side, bumping Steve's elbow to side-step the blow. "I can have my lawyer get this thing annulled by tomorrow afternoon." 

He could feel how his skin had gone pale, a heavy sweat working its way to life along his neck and collar and forehead. No matter how he tried to stop, Steve found he was incapable of tearing his eyes from the photos in his hands.

"I know him," Steve whispered. "I've known him nearly my entire life."

 

_____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!! Sorry if Cho and Coulson seem out of character- really, they were the only characters in the MCU I could think of that would fit the roles they needed to play. Update will come soon and so will Buck in the next chapter, as said :) Please comment and kudo; I appreciate it very much!


	5. A Familiar Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good god had he missed Bucky Barnes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pops bottle of champagne* ENTER MY SWEET CINNAMON ROLL, BUCKY BARNES~~~~~

 

\-----

 

It began like this:

Steve Rogers, at age six, lived in an apartment with his Ma in Brooklyn, New York. His Ma, Sarah, worked day in and day out as a nurse to keep up with the mountain of medical bills her physically problematic son cropped up. On a particular day where his Ma had a double shift—meaning she’d be gone all day, most of the night and only nab about three hours sleep before she had to be back in her scrubs and off on her rounds again—when he was walking home from the bus stop only to stumble on a pair of jerks trying to kick a helpless dog.

The dog was yellow. Steve never saw that yellow dog again, because he took its place and got the tar kicked out of him, instead.

He didn’t just go down, though. He  _had_ tried to throw a couple of punches, and  _had_ landed one or two, but these boys were middle schoolers: just hit puberty, full of themselves, at peak form. Steve was just a ninety pound asthmatic with a heart murmur and blood on his teeth, bruises forming on his belly and ribs that wouldn’t heal for weeks.

One of the boys went down after he’d been hit in the back of the head with a round, metal trashcan lid. His accomplice rounded in step in time to get a bit of metal to the face. Both dropped like the dumb rocks they were.  _I’m toast_ , Steve had thought to himself, shaking in his pants and on the grit of the ground.

“Hey,” came a soft voice, a bit high in pitch, but very much a boy. There was a sound of metal clattering against brick and then warm hands touching his neck, his jaw. “Hey, pal, get up.”

Steve pulled back an eyelid, the only one that wasn’t swollen shut. “Ngh.”

“Me, too,” the boy said. “After that math lesson Mrs. What’s-‘er-Name gave us,  _me too_.” Right. This was one of Steve’s schoolmates, just moved from Wisconsin with his parents and three little sisters, or so he’d said to the class when their homeroom teacher asked for him to introduce himself. They had every class together; he even sat beside Steve in science. “Can you stand?”

“Of  _course_  I can stand,” Steve grumbled, trying, and failing, to do just that. He was halfway up when his vision slanted and he nearly bashed his head into the brick building at his left.

“Woah!” the boy said sharply. The warm hands returned to Steve, a steadying arm going around his shoulders, another pressing lightly to his chest in case he decided to tumble forward. “Take it easy, okay?”

“I had ‘em on the ropes,” Steve muttered, unable to keep from leaning into the boy’s side. The boy was taller than he was, broader, too. His eyes were gray-blue, hair dark and hanging a bit into his forehead: there was a tiny cleft in his round chin. Steve had never seen anyone with a tiny cleft in their chin before.

“I know you did,” the boy said easily. “I’mma walk you to a hospital.”

“No!” Steve said loudly, loud enough to startle his means of support. Even at eight he was a very prideful thing, but he could think of no other way to skirt around the truth: “My Ma and I don’t have the money.”

There was no pity in the boy’s stance or even in his eyes, to which Steve was grateful. “Okay,” he was told simply. “Which way to your house?”

Steve told him the way to his house.

When they reached the steps to the lobby of the apartment complex, the boy made a noise, though Steve was too out of it to decipher what sort of noise it was. “I live here!”

“No,  _I_ live here.”

He felt rather than saw the boy roll his eyes. “We can both live in the same complex, punk.”

“Jerk,” Steve said, natural as breathing. He went still, waiting for a hit, only for the boy to laugh, the pair of them moving into the elevator after waiting for a man and his lady friend who was not his wife to get off. “So what’s your name anyway?” Steve, terrible as he felt already, winced when he remembered that the boy  _had_ told everyone his name that morning: it started with a J. Jim? John?

“James Buchanan Barnes,” said James Buchanan Barnes, easy-going as anything. He tightened his hand in Steve’s shirt when the doors parted on Steve’s floor. “But my friends call me Bucky.”

“Bucky,” Steve echoed.

“There you go!” Bucky said brightly. The grin Steve got was toothy and wide, with a bit of gums to it where Bucky had lost one of his bottom teeth. “And who are you?”

“Steve,” he told him. “Steven Grant Rogers.”

Bucky let them into Steve’s apartment—though Steve didn’t recall having handed him the key—and dragged Steve right to the bathroom where small, but capable fingers went about patching Steve up the best he could; which was to say there were a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Band-Aids stuck to his face and a frozen bag of peas pressed to his throbbing mid-section. Bucky stuck around until Sarah got home, her boss having told her to get some rest with an easy smile, and he winced when the Irish came out in the petite strawberry blonde and her words became accented and her cheeks flushed hot-red.

“They were trying to hurt a puppy, Ma,” Steve said softly, covering the side of his face where the most muted green strips were. Bucky offered up a nod to prove this true. “It was just a babe…”

“As are you,” she sighed. “Steven, you cannot go bracing the weight of the world.”

“Someone’s gotta,” Steve muttered.

Bucky chuffed him lightly on the arm. “Your Ma’s a wise lady, pal. You should listen to her.”

And honestly, that was the exact moment Bucky Barnes became Sarah’s second son. Bucky became a frequent guest at the Roger’s, slinging his arm around Steve when they slept over in Steve’s double bed, pulling out the couch cushions and laying them on Steve’s floor when Bucky grew too big to comfortably squeeze in beside Steve. Hell, they ended up wedged together more often than not, despite their growing bodies (well,  _Bucky’s_ growing body—Steve remained the same size until nearly the end of high school): after all the times that Steve found himself in the hospital, the comfort of having Steve close, of having his heartbeat within hearing range, was a much more preferable sleeping position.

Bucky was one of few that actually  _saw_ Steve, rather than bumped by him in the hall or sneered when he tried to start a conversation. He called Steve out on his bullshit, something Steve appreciated because sometimes, he really could be a bull-headed bastard full of righteousness who was in dire need of a kick in the pants.

In return, Steve looked at Bucky like he was the fucking sun, his very own source of life that no one else living knew about and, sometimes, it felt like Bucky was looking back.

The pair of them were thick as thieves, alongside each other for so many firsts: first D’s on their report cards, first tragedies, first kisses, first family vacations (where the Barnes clan took Steve to a beach in Jersey and he and Buck sucked their teeth the first hour they were on New Jersey sand), and the list rolled on. Winifred and George Barnes had practically been another set of parents for Steve, with Rebecca, Alice and Grace serving as the little sisters he never knew he’d wanted, but found he was incapable of replacing them once each of their faces had settled in his heart.

They were a dominant part of each other’s lives for a decade, until Bucky’s father got a job offer in D.C. and the entire Barnes clan was made to pack up and leave New York. He thought that was rather typical given how he realized just how deep his love for Bucky ran in time for Bucky to go away. Of course, they kept in contact through phone calls and even letters, though mostly the former because who even wrote letters anymore except to their grandparents and even grandparents knew how to operate a telephone.

Distance pulled them apart, eventually.

High school had the both of them occupied. The work load was heavier, more friends were acquired—Steve met Tony and Pepper and Nat and Bruce and Sam, here— and college was looming closer and closer: he took to working three jobs to save up so his Ma wouldn’t have to, joined the military when the money he’d saved didn’t cut it. The phone calls got shorter until the conversations were under two minutes and a majority of what passed between them was anecdotes the other couldn’t fully appreciate because they had not lived it, the letters stopped coming. Suddenly, Steve didn’t know anything about Bucky Barnes anymore and that hurt more than the secret love he buried.

He came out as bisexual his senior year, even had a little bit of a thing with a brunet who had pale blue eyes with the hopes of shaking what he felt for Bucky, for getting it out his system. (He’d been so naïve to think that was the solution.)

That worked about as well as one could imagine which was to say it only made him miss Bucky even more  _and_ made him feel like an asshole for using another person for what he had hoped to be his own benefit. In the end, Steve pressed his love away, stored it in the safest places of his heart, where his Ma was, where the image of his long-gone Da was. He never forgot Bucky: he just didn’t torture himself by thinking about him every waking moment of each day. 

And now, there he was, ten years down the road.

“Bucky Barnes,” Bruce echoed, his eyes blowing open wide behind his glasses. He was nervously bouncing Betty on his knee. “Holy shit. _The_ Bucky Barnes? Natasha said that you had a huge thing for him in high school.”

Steve grit his teeth, clenching his eyes shut to stave off tears. “Nat needs to mind her own god damn business.”

“Yep,” Tony confirmed. “It’s his Bucky, alright.”

They were going twenty over the speed limit, utilizing the police siren yet again, in order to reach Bucky’s apartment complex as soon as mechanically possible. “I understand you’re worried, with Sharon and all…,” Bruce tried again, trying to sound delicate and failing, given the subject matter he was throwing out into the air.

“Sharon and I are practically over,” Steve snapped, not feeling the least bit terrible when Bruce recoiled slightly and Tony made a small sound of protest. “I’m not  _blind_.”

“Then you’re feeling nervous because—”

The truth, like lava bursting from the mouth of a volcano, exploded out of him sharply: “I never got over him. It’s all been kept inside of me for the last,  _god,_ nine years? And I am pants shitting scared that he will look right at me and he’ll laugh in my face if I tell him the truth.”

Tony sucked his teeth, executing a swift, illegal U-turn. “ _If_? Rogers, you  _married_ the guy. I think he has a good idea how you feel about him.”

And that was the worst part. He had gotten bound himself to Bucky and he couldn’t even remember what his face had looked like when Steve said, “I do.” Couldn’t recall what the soft plush line of his mouth felt like under Steve’s own. He felt like he was going to vomit and doubled over, arms wrapping tightly around his midsection as he dipped his head between his knees.

“Steve,” Bruce tried. “If you’re so sure you and Sharon are done, have you stopped to consider that  _this_?” Steve didn’t have to leave the haven that was his strained fetal position to know Bruce was flapping his hand in a gesture that encompassed the car, the baby, and the ring on Steve’s finger. “Could quite possibly be a new start for you? For Bucky, too?”

“I’ve actually been trying to focus on not puking,” Steve muttered.

“Good goal,” Tony praised, all sarcasm. If Steve offered up a careful ear, he thought there might just be a teaspoon of concern beneath Tony’s words. “That’s a solid goal. Strong foundation.”

“This can be a great thing,” Bruce continued. “Seriously. Please try to get it together… because we just pulled into the complex’s parking lot.”

Steve snapped up so fast he slammed the top of his head into the roof the police cruiser. “Motherfucker,” he swore.

“Steven Grant,” Tony admonished, brandishing a stern finger Steve’s way. “That is no god damn way to talk in front a  _baby_. Apologize to Beyoncé right this minute.”

But Steve was already flinging open the door, ripping off the seatbelt he couldn’t quite remember fastening, and taking off in the direction of the set of stairs leading to the second floor of apartments. The entire place looked like a health inspector’s worst nightmare, all pealing pant and overhead tiles on the verge of collapsing, each space squat and compact and not in the good way.

He took the wood stairs, all of them painted off-white, three at a time, practically tripping over himself in his haste. Bucky lived in the twenty-first flat all the way at the end of the half-hall. “You need to relax!” Bruce called, cupping his hands around his mouth to throw his voice. He and Tony were just climbing out of the car.

Steve reached the door, bronze numbers declaring it to be the one he was in search of. The wooden panel was painted deep blue. It looked like a fresh coat.

Just as he raised his hand to knock, the door swung inward.

“Hey, husband,” said Bucky Barnes, still just as brilliant a sight as he was when Steve was sixteen and Bucky was climbing into the back of his parent's car and heading away from Brooklyn and  _Steve_  and everything they'd built. “Jesus H., Steve. You look like shit. What happened after I left, huh?”

“Bucky,” Steve whispered.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, nice and slow. His hair was a little longer, parted unevenly down the middle and tucked behind his ears to keep it out of his face. He was clean-shaven, eyes as clear and blue as the summer sky over Coney Island. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“ _Buck_ ,” he choked, unable to stand the two feet of distance between them a second longer. Steve surged forward, throwing his arms around Bucky’s neck. He settled one hand in Bucky’s hair, the other on the warm strip of skin at Bucky’s nape.

He had no trouble hearing the way Bucky’s breath was knocked right of his lungs at the force behind Steve’s embrace, given Buck’s mouth and nose were burrowed in the space between Steve’s neck and shoulder. “Hey, Stevie,” Bucky murmured. “Shh, doll, it’s alright. I don’t know what happened, but I’ve got you. I’ve  _got_ you.”

And he  _did._ Bucky’s arms had slid around Steve’s waist, latching on with an intensity rival to Steve’s own.

He wished he could sift through the fog in his mind, through the stupid barriers that kept him from recalling the first instance he and Bucky reunited the night previous: had Bucky recognized him first? Steve thought him stumbling up to Bucky would be the more likely option, given Steve had shot up seven inches and filled out, going from ninety pounds to two-twenty once puberty slammed into him like a freight train. What had he said? What had  _Bucky_ said? Had he burst into drunken tears? Had he taken Bucky in his arms and grabbed onto him in the manner of a koala holding a tree limb…?

They remained like that, breathing each other in and assuring themselves that the other was there, really and truly  _there_ , and only parted when—

“Oh my god, Rikki!” Bucky exclaimed, bolting away from Steve to take Betty/Peggy/Beyoncé, who’s actual name was Rikki, apparently, from Bruce. The dark haired man clutched the infant to him, pressing a warm kiss to the top of her head and burying his nose in the thin sweep of pale hair atop her small skull. “I was just on my way to come get her. God, I was so stupid leaving her like that…”

“Least you put her in the closet,” Tony piped. “We’ve acquired dangerous creatures in our bathroom.”

Bucky blinked. “Dangerous creatures.”

“Uhuh.”

He held Rikki a little tighter. “In your  _bathroom_.”

“Yup. Scared the piss right out of Doctor Cuddles this morning. Isn’t that right, Bruce?”

“Tony, I think it would be best if you stopped talking,” Bruce warned and a slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up and out through Steve’s lips.

“Might be best, yeah,” Bucky confirmed, bouncing Rikki in his arms with a little grin illuminating his features. He’d not changed, not really. He’d filled out in the shoulders, became more strong muscle than plush skin. “Why don’t you all come inside? The neighbors will call the cops if we’re too loud.”

Bucky’s place was smaller on the inside than the outside, comprised of only three rooms—a bathroom, kitchen, and a large living room where a baby bed and a mattress without a frame was settled. An ancient TV set was turned on and muted, more static than actual picture, a rocking chair was settled beside the crib, a four legged stool pushed against the wall to the right of the door. Pictures were strung along a wire, making two loops gracefully over Bucky’s bed: Steve could see images of Winifred and George standing on a serene pier, Rebecca, grown up and glowing in a graduation gown, Alice and Grace with their arms around each other, beaming at the camera.

The only photo of Bucky was him standing beside Steve, taken a few weeks before the news broke that Bucky would be leaving Brooklyn.

Something in his chest  _twisted._

“Nice place,” Tony said. “I like the whole minimalist thing you’ve got going on here, Barnes.”

Bucky snorted. “You said the same thing last night, Stark. Didn’t think you were one for replaying jokes.”

“Reduce, reuse, recycle,” Tony said. “Go green. Save the planet one less paper wad at a time and all that jazz.”

“Grab a seat,” Bucky offered, nodding at Tony and Bruce. He caught Steve’s eye, jerking his head in the direction of the kitchen, that gave them a semblance of privacy with an accordion door that glided easily into place after them.

“Don’t  _lay_  on the guy’s mattress, Tony!” Bruce sighed in their wake.

“If I were at home, I’d be in bed. With Pepper. The good Mrs. Rogers gave me an order and I am determined to stick to it the best I can,” Tony sniffed. There was the pointed sound of springs adjusting to someone’s weight, followed by another sigh.

“God, you need to keep him on a backpack leash,” Bucky murmured, shaking his head fondly at Steve and gently lowering Rikki down on to the counter. “Can you watch her while I get her formula ready? She’s got to be starving by now.”

Steve nodded, jerkily, stepping up and offering Rikki a hand to nibble on.

“Alright,” Bucky asked him after a long minute of silence. “You nearly talked my ear off last night—what  _did_ happen, huh?” Steve couldn’t look at him. He couldn’t force out the words, not yet.

“Previously on  _Days of Our Lives_ …,” came the chime from the other room. 

“Not  _helping,_ Stark,” Steve barked, packed with enough bite that Rikki whimpered. He turned to her, as though stung. "Shh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Not you, sweetheart. I'm not upset with you." 

"Steeb-ah," Rikki mumbled wetly, clutching tighter to his hand. He raised his free hand, resting it gently against the side of her head with a thumb brushing lightly over her damp cheek as Bucky went about fixing up a bottle for her. " _Steeb_." 

Steve bit at his mouth, brows creasing in the middle. He clambered for something to say. Something. Literally  _anything_. “Is she…?” he swallowed, his ribs going tight at Bucky’s eyes catching his. There was an emotion that Steve could not identify loitering heavily at the edges of Bucky's expression. “Is she yours?”

“No,” Bucky murmured, plucking the bottle from the microwave and testing the temperature of the formula on the inside of his wrist. “Well, yes and no.” He moved to collect Rikki from where he’d let her sit on the counter, scooping her up and nuzzling her cheek with his nose. Steve's hands felt cold without her. “I was walking home from work one night when I passed an alley. I heard crying. Checked out the source and low and behold, there she was.

“She couldn’t have been more than three pounds, Steve,” he confessed at a hushed whisper, eyes never leaving Rikki’s face as she nursed from the plastic nipple, content, oblivious to the story being passed over her head. “I rushed her to the closest hospital and the doctors said if I would have waited any longer, she might not have made it. And so I’m waiting around and this nurse comes out and she’s got a cop with her. After they drill me for all I know, I ask if they’ve found her parents.

“Turns out, her birth hadn’t been recorded at any of the hospitals in the area and I asked what would happen if no one ever claimed her. This one real decent lady cop told me that she'd be put into the system; said that people are always looking to adopt babies." He bounced Rikki in his arms, holding her close to him as she sucked happily one her bottle. Her eyes were heavy, a little hand curled around one of Bucky's fingers. Steve wanted to take a picture- hell, a  _thousand_ pictures- in case this was the first and last time he'd be exposed to such a scene, could look back on it whenever he'd like. "There was something about her... I-I just couldn't let her go. So after a surprising amount of paper work, I got to adopt her." 

Steve's throat felt tight, like he'd been punched there. "She's so lucky to have you, Buck." 

And that same calculating look dominated Bucky's features once more. He ghosted a kiss over Rikki's rosy head and slipped out of the kitchen. Steve, through the thundering roar of blood pounding behind his ears, could faintly hear Bucky asking if Bruce could "please finish feeding the little lady. I'd ask the other one, but I'm not sure if Stark is allowed to be around children." He was stock-still, a block of ice waiting for the damning chisel to slam into him and shatter his body into a thousand, a million shards.  

Bucky re-entered the kitchen, brows scrunching at the middle with concern as Steve had not budged a single inch. He folded his arms over his chest and, now that Steve had the opportunity to flick his eyes over the entirety of Bucky's body, he noticed how the left one was completely made of some sort of  _metal_. Steve felt like he was going to vomit.  _How had Buck lost his...?_ The room tilted dangerously, coming in at a blurry angle. A blink, a real hard one, cleared his vision long enough to see that Bucky's own eyes were sad, but his mouth was still turned up at the corners. “You don’t remember a fucking thing from last night, do you?”

His silent hesitation was answer enough. The brunette rucked a hand through his hair, thoroughly disturbing the semblance of put-togetherness Bucky had carefully established. Despite the way his hair fluttered about in several thousand directions, despite the tired purple rings beneath his eyes, Bucky was still so, so beautiful. (Still the most dominant piece in Steve’s heart. He'd just had to dust him off, was all.) “At some point during the night, Tony, Bruce, Clint and I all got dosed with some sort of date-rape drug.”

“You got roofied,” Bucky realized slowly. “You and all of your friends." 

“Uhuh. We can’t find Clint, either. We were, ah, retracing our steps when we stumbled on Best Little Chapel… on Phil.”

The brunet’s mouth twitched before turning down completely, his right hand gliding through his hair. “Oh, hell, Steve—the shit you get into, I swear to God.”

After going so long, thinking he’d never hear Bucky’s voice, see his face, his mouth frame around his words, Steve’s eyes were moving rapidly, trying to take in every little piece of him. The question of his enhanced arm ran through his head yet again. It never left, plaguing him. Screaming at him. “I know,” he whispered. “God, Buck, I know.”

Bucky’s eyes flicked up at his tone, whatever had hardened went liquid and a sigh fell from between his lips. “I’d just gotten off work; we were both punch-drunk, you, apparently, high as a kite, and Barton took us on a route right by an in-and-out chapel.” Bucky’s throat worked around a swallow. He raised his left hand, the one entirely  _made of fucking metal_ , where a large cherry ring pop rested on the digit where a wedding ring would. “You insisted the moment some classy jewelry store opened up, you’d get me something real.”

A thousand questions were rising to life and falling out of existence in his mind:  _Why did you let me?_ And  _Why, out of everyone I’ve ever misplaced in life, did I have to forget meeting you again?_ “I will,” he joked, a bit choked up and red all about his neck and ears. “Something made of solid gold—or silver. Titanium?”

“Steve,” Bucky said, and he shut his trap. There was no heat behind his name. Bucky was staring at him with the intensity he used to give his comic books or those science fiction novels he’d gotten ten for a buck at an old thrift store. He steeled himself, waiting for the gavel to fall, for Bucky to push him away and kick him to the curb, saying real quiet—because Bucky never yelled, not unless he was real, real mad and there was no anger, now—that he never wanted to see Steve again—

“So much about you changed,” Bucky said, low and soft so none of the others could hear. Steve didn’t think they much cared anyway, given the cooing noises coming from Tony, the sound of Bruce shaking the rattle to occupy Rikki’s attention all swooping in from the living room. Buck raised a hand, traced a warm digit down the length of Steve’s nose. “But that big honker of yours hasn’t. Christ above, did you break it again?”

“Twice,” Steve admitted.

“ _God,_ Stevie,” he repeated.

“I know,” Steve echoed yet again.

“C’mere, you idiot,” Bucky murmured, looping his right arm around Steve’s neck and using his other to draw Steve in at the waist, palm flattened firmly on the small of Steve’s back.

Just like that, they were hugging. Again. One of Bucky’s hands plucked gently at his hoodie, a spacey black thing that smelled like… “Nice hoodie,” Bucky said, a touch teasing. “Looks better on you than me, though.”

Steve could not stamp down on a wet laugh. He used to wear Bucky’s jackets when he was a kid, given most of them were hand-me downs from his father and the new ones Buck’s ma bought him for his birthday, child’s size and better-fitting, somehow ended up on a plastic hanger in Steve’s closet. He smiled, pressing the shape of it into Bucky’s shoulder.

“Can’t believe you let me take the actual shirt off your back,” he muttered, without heat.

“Pal,  _believe_ it.”

They stood close, clinging like sap to the veins of a tree, occasionally shuffling their feet so their bodies didn’t go so stiff. But this was an old song and dance and so long as Bucky was willing to hold on, Steve was more than happy to accept the most comforting embrace he’d been allowed in the last decade. 

“You asked if you could draw me like one of your French boys,” he was told after a solid minute of quiet, where they did nothing but hold each other and press close. Steve groaned, dropping his forehead onto Bucky’s shoulder, growing more and more mortified, still, when he felt Bucky begin to quake with laughter. “It’s real good to know you stuck with art, Stevie.”

“I’m actually an art teacher, now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he said, soft and comfortable and this ball of conversation was so  _easy_ to throw back and forth between them. Good god had he missed Bucky Barnes. “At good old Brooklyn Heights Elementary—kindergarten thru fifth.”

Bucky’s smile was so wide and sincere it was like looking into the sun. “I bet the little ankle bitters just love you.”

Steve hummed. “They like destroying my classroom so I have to stay after for a good two hours.”

There was a snort near his ear. “You love every second of it.”

“I do,” he agreed, tracing a hand from the top of Bucky's spine to the small of his back. Up, down. Repeat. Bucky curled closer to him, like a plant leaning into the light of day. "So," Steve asked, giving a grand sniff as he pulled back and tipped his backside against the sink. He didn't let go of Bucky. He wasn't sure he was capable. "What have you been up to the last decade?" 

Bucky huffed. "Short run-down? I graduated high school, joined the army, got my arm blown off by an IED, came home, took part in an experimental prosthetic program, moved out here and got a shit job that I just  _adore._ Rikki came just after that and then you turned up with your band of hooligans." 

The accordion door twitched. "Um, we're called Avengers, RoboCop."

" _Tony_ , I will call Pepper  _so fast_ ," Steve warned, jerking to attention. There was the distinct sound of something being plucked up and thrown, the object making clear contact with a body. A grunt by the door. A joyful series of giggles on Rikki's part. 

"Life Partner! Did you just-?"

"Throw my shoe at you? Yes, yes I did. I have one more, Tony. I'm more than happy to make Rikki laugh again. It's your fault- I told you to let them..."  

Steve drew Bucky's attention back to their little bubble by moving the hand he'd kept at the side of Bucky's neck to trace the metal plating of his arm. Much to his surprise, the silver surface was  _warm,_ the plates shuddering as Steve's fingers trailed further down. In the end, he caught Bucky's left hand in his, incapable of looking away from the intricate mechanics of the silver digits. They actually  _curled_ to Steve's when he linked their fingers, giving his knuckle a squeeze. 

"Can you feel...?" 

Bucky's breathing had gone a little shallow, the strands of hair tucked behind his ears falling down to curtain his face when he shook his head. "S'just pressure." 

Steve turned their hands so he could inspect Bucky's more, brushing his thumb over the little ridges of his knuckles. "It's real beautiful, Buck." The honking red ring pop was still settled on his hand, a parody of what could be. "Candy and all."

The man in his embrace practically deflated against his side. "S'real good to know you have the same mind-sets high as you do sober, Stevie."

Steve raised an eyebrow.  "It's part of you," he said, as though this were obvious. The sky is blue. Grass is green. Bucky Barnes is a work of art. "Of course it's beautiful." 

"You say the sweetest things," Bucky murmured weakly. "And you?" 

"And me, what?" 

Those blue-gray irises rolled, endlessly fond. "What have  _you_ been up to, huh? How'd you go from a ninety-pound asthmatic to...," the metal hand drew a path from Steve's neck to his naval, eliciting a shiver from him. "...this?" 

"I joined the army," Steve told him. "Well, that and puberty hit me like a truck senior year of high school. We didn't have the money for me to go to college so I enlisted in the Army and served a tour in Afghanistan. Came home and went to NYU for creative arts. I’d stayed friends with my art teacher in high school—Mr. Erskine—and he was able to help me get a post at Brooklyn Heights elementary. Ma still lives in our old place.” He felt himself grow suddenly light, his face splitting into a beam. “Buck, she’d love to see you. She’s missed you so much.”

Bucky let his forehead press against Steve’s cheekbone. “Sarah Rogers… I miss her, too. God, she used to cut you down when you hopped up on your high horse. Probably one of the only people in the world who could get through to you in under a minute.” When his mouth moved, Steve could feel the words as they were formed drop along his shoulder. “Does she still make those pies? The apple one with the little sprinkle of nutmeg in the crust?”

“Every year for my birthday,” Steve confirmed. “You should come back with me. Make a whole thing out of it.”

Steve’s tension seemed to pass out of his body and drift through the points he and Bucky were pressed together, settling in Bucky’s bones. The line of his back went rigid, his hand clenched around Steve’s. Bucky straightened up so they were nearly the same height. “It’s not that simple, Steve,” he sighed. “I have a job that I have to show up to or I’ll get fired. That’s something I literally cannot afford with Rikki and the girls relying on me.”

The hold Bucky had kept on Steve’s side fell away, moving to catch Steve’s left hand in his, turning it so it was knuckle-up. His flesh fingers were a little rough at the edges, but not unpleasantly so. He knew these hands, even if he had to reacquaint himself with them. This aside, yet another inquiry came to mind:

"Buck, whose ring is this?" Steve wondered softly, flattening out his hand to display the simple golden band between them. 

He didn't miss the way Bucky's throat bobbed, the words, literally, trying to climb out of him. "My Da's. He and my Ma passed away a couple years back. Car crash, icy roads." 

"Oh, Buck," he whispered, voice going feeble and croaky in a rush of grief. George and Winifred Barnes had been Good people, the title deserving of being capitalized. Steve could clearly recall George giving him a piggy back around the warm Barnes living-room, of sitting on the counter swinging his legs a couple feet off the floor as Winifred offered him a wooden spoon to taste-test whatever dish she decided to whip up that evening. The Barnes were drawn in thick, firm lines, always smiling, bickering with each other comfortably, always kind. He hadn't thought about them, either of them, in so long. "What about Becca? And Grace and Alice?" 

Bucky absolutely lit up at the mention of his sisters. "Becca is in school," he said, proud as anything. "She's shooting to become a doctor, and Grace is doing some missionary work in this country in Africa... Wakanda, I think. Alice is graduating from high school next year: she's with my Aunt Bea in DC." Steve shuddered at the mention of Beatrice Barnes, an old, cranky, hook-nosed woman whose middle name, Bucky had joked when they were twelve, was Spite. 

Steve rolled his thumb over the ring, over its soft gleaming surface. He made to tug it off his finger, but Bucky's flesh hand flew out and stopped him, curling abruptly around his fingers. "I can't keep this," he objected. 

"Yes, you can," Bucky retorted, too sharp and a bit too loud in the close quarters.

(Steve knew this to be fact given the way Tony said, clearly, from the other room: " _Whomp, there it is._ " Bruce did not utter a single thing in response. Did not even throw his remaining shoe. Even Rikki was silent.)

“Or," Bucky continued, much softer. So much softer it almost hurt to hear. "We can have the marriage annulled in a few days, once you find Barton,” Bucky told him quietly. The words stuck in his throat, dropping hard and heavy, like he’d rather be saying anything else. “I’ve got work for the next few days, but if you want to stick around…”

Steve’s mind short-circuited. “No!” he yelped, unable to reign in his tongue before he could keep from doing so. Bucky recoiled, as though he’d been shot. Repeatedly.“No, not that—I mean—yes,  _that_ , ugh— _fuck_!” Steve covered his face with his hands, a feat given he had to let go of Bucky to do so. Loudly, slow and drawn out, Steve sighed into his palms.

Fingers covered his, gently tugging his wrists downward: he opened his eyes and found Bucky watching him, bottom lip pinned between his teeth. “It’s  _me_ , Steve,” he murmured, giving both his hands a squeeze. “Whatever it is you have to say, you can say it.”

But could he?  _I’ve been in love with you for fourteen years,_ Steve thought, hoping he could relay everything with his eyes where his vocal chords failed him. _And now you’re here and I know we aren’t the same kids we used to be, I know. We’ve grown up, seen shit that makes us sleep less easy at night and we’ve lost things and gained things, but me loving you has been the only constant all that time. And now we’re married. Actually fucking married, and I don’t want to get the marriage annulled. I don’t want you to slip away. Not again. I couldn’t handle you walking away from me again. I’d uproot my entire life to this city, live in a box just to be near you._

“When we find Clint,” Steve said slowly, unable to meet Bucky’s eyes, “when it’s not so hectic, I want to sit down and  _talk_.”

Bucky squinted at him. Some of the tension had left him, though, not all of it. “But you don’t want the marriage annulled.” It was not a question.

A swallow had his throat working something painful. He shook his head  _no_. Steve uttered the same word aloud, quiet as anything. “I don’t, Buck, if we’re being honest with each other.”

In the whole time since he and Bucky had hidden away in the kitchen, they hadn't been more than three feet apart. The realization that slammed into Steve, just then, almost threatened to have him floored: Bucky hadn’t been drunk that night, or intoxicated in the very least... so why had he agreed to marry Steve? Was it pity? Was it a joke? Nothing in the way Bucky had held onto him felt like a prank and George Barnes' ring on his finger didn't feel like a joke, either. 

His throat was suddenly tight and his stomach twisted anxiously. If Bucky felt nothing for him, did not return Steve’s feelings, then  _why_?

Did that mean…?

Steve's head was spinning. The whole fucking room was spinning as hope exploded behind his ribs. Flowers were blooming in the shadowed places that had never known life, coiling up and up and  _up_ , filling his body from the inside. He wouldn't be surprised if he spat out pastel-hued petals, if bees tried to pollinate  _him_. 

What came out his mouth instead, a bit high-pitched:

“Do you know anything about—?” Steve gestured vaguely to his chest, the blood in his face causing him to flush further when Bucky snorted.

Apparently, the noise packed enough volume to be heard in the next room, even with the door pulled up, because Tony called: “Did you show him your dick, Rogers? That’s always the reaction you get from the boys and girls!”

“Buck, Bucky, no—quit laughing that only encourages him,” Steve groaned and, at the sound of laughter emanating from the man in front of him, he began to quake with mirth, too. 

“You wanted to get a real tattoo, but I convinced you to get temporary ones instead. Were really pouty about—”

There was a hard hit against the apartment door, then another, and he and Bucky burst into the living-room just as the front door was being kicked open. Two uniformed officers brandished guns, aimed right at Bruce, Tony and Steve.

"Las Vegas P.D! Everyone put their hands up. Now!  _Now_!" 

He felt Bucky’s metal hand slip under the hem of his shirt and grip, unwaveringly, at his hip.

 

\-----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun DAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
> 
> Also, in case you're wondering: Steve is 26 with Bucky being 27.
> 
> In the meantime, if you would like to read something fluffy and sweet to get rid of all this ANGST, check out my other fic, [like-minded beasts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6888178). Seriously, the premise of it is that T'Challa drops into Brooklyn to check in on Bucky and Steve and he finds a kitten. Adventure ensures <3 See you all soon!


	6. Hole Dug Deeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony’s leg shot up and kicked the device right out of the boy’s hand. In return, the boy made the universal gesture of what the shit, dude. “Bill me,” Tony snapped. The device, frail and old as it was, shattered into at least a dozen metallic pieces. The boy spared a few moments of stooping to pick up the remains of his phone, all the while glaring daggers at Tony.
> 
> (And if looks could kill, Tony Stark would have been suffered a fate worse than the hero at the end of Braveheart.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, this is more of a filler chapter, but after this, things start rolling :)

\-----

 

Natasha had had the same cell number since they were thirteen years old. Even pulling a streak with some government organization that she could never name, not even to Bruce, the set of seven digits had been a fond string to her. He was suddenly thankful, as, handcuffed to Tony, whom was handcuffed to Steve, he slowly entered the number into the payphone located in a brightly-lit corner of the Las Vegas Police Department.

It took two rings before she picked up. “Hello?”

“Nat!” Bruce breathed. He was so thankful to hear her voice, the perpetual dryness of it. “How are you?”

“Why are you calling me on a different number?” she prompted. He could practically _hear_ her eyebrows raising, searching for bullshit even across the country.

“Because we, ah, left our phones at the hotel,” he lied. “We’re at a spy. Er, relaxing.”

Even from a few thousand miles away, Bruce had no problem feeling Natasha squinting at him, doubtful. “You sound like you’re getting your nails ripped out from the cuticle.”

“What?” Bruce laughed nervously, turning the best he could with his arm basically attached to Tony’s. He gave a frantic, wide-eyed shake of his head. “It’s just really steamy in here… My voice seems fainter.”

“Uhuh,” Natasha hummed. “Well, Betty, Pepper and I are by the pool catching some sun. Where’s Clint, by the way? I’ve left him all sorts of messages.”

“Clint?” Bruce laughed again, a little higher and a lot longer this time. “We’ve made a vow to each other not to talk to our wives slash fiancées until the morning of the wedding. He thought it would make seeing you at the other end of the aisle all the more romantic.”

The woman who was his sister in all ways but blood made a thoughtful sound. “That’s sweet of him.”

A group of children, all of them maybe ten to twelve years old, were being guided around by a cop. They paused a few feet away.

“This is the bench of shame,” the officer declared, waving a hand at the three of them. Steve covered his face, slumping lower as though the worn grain of his wooden seat was somehow connected to a black hole and if he wished hard enough, he could be sucked into it. “Take a good, long look, kids. Take a look at these clowns—don’t end up like them.”

“Who was that?” Natasha inquired slowly.

“Uh, the masseuse,” he immediately proclaimed. “He popped in to say our sessions would be starting in two minutes.”

“ _Uhuh_ ,” she said, doubtful. “How’s the hotel, then?”

“Oh, it’s gorgeous, Tasha. A little uppity for Steve and I, but Tony’s fitting in just fine.” Speaking of Tony, a round-faced boy, complete with acne and a bowl-cut, approached him with a flip phone, zooming in real close to his face with a little leer curling the corners of his mouth. The shutter of a camera sounded.

Tony’s leg shot up and kicked the device right out of the boy’s hand. In return, the boy made the universal gesture of _what the shit, dude_. “Bill me,” Tony snapped. The device, frail and old as it was, shattered into at least a dozen metallic pieces. The boy spared a few moments of stooping to pick up the remains of his phone, all the while glaring daggers at Tony.

(And if looks could kill, Tony Stark would have been suffered a fate worse than the hero at the end of _Braveheart._ )

“I fucking hate everyone ever,” Steve whimpered, clutching at his face tighter. Even through his fingers, Bruce had no issue seeing that Steve was flushed cherry-red from chest to hairline. Hell, he was probably rouge with embarrassment, having been dragged out of the apartment of his husband in the midst of said husband and said husband’s baby girl, all the way down to his toes. In that moment had Bruce not been handcuffed, he would have hugged the shit out Steve, patted his back and told him it was going to be alright.

“Bruce,” Nat said, probing. “Don’t bullshit me. Are you all seriously okay?”

“Banner! Rogers! Stark!” chimed a dark haired man with a file under his arm. At his left stood a woman with her hands on her hips, her deep brown hair neatly coiffed and her cheekbones standing out given the way she pursed her red-painted lips. “Follow me!”

“Yep, we’re all fine! Steve, Tony, _Clint_ and I are all fine—”

“Pronto!” the officer bearing their file called.

“—but we’ve got to go. The masseuse is ready for us. I’ll call you tonight, Nat! Love you, bye!”

He slammed the phone down on its base, tipping his forehead against it only for a split second before Steve was tugging Tony and Bruce towards the awaiting officers.

The mighty blond was jittery as shit, his strides doubling the length of Bruce’s. It put a strain, to say the least, on the handcuff situation. “We need to wrap this up as soon as possible.”

Tony snorted, power-walking just to keep up. “Why? So you can get back to the missus?”

Steve faltered long enough to kick him, withering under the look the female officer gave them. “As a matter of fact, yes, that is _exactly_ why.”

“Have you forgotten, Star Spangled Moobs, that our dear, dear friend Clinton, whom has been with us since _high school_ is missing? Hmm?”

“No,” Steve snapped. “But I’ve got a man I’ve been married to for less than twenty-four hours, a man I’ve not seen for a decade, who just saw me get hauled off to the stony lonesome with a felony charge on my back. I kind of want to let him know that I’m not, yanno, off to the gallows.”

“In here,” the male cop said. On his right pectoral, the strip with his last name on it proclaimed him to be SOUSA. 

They were made to sit down in a small room, the concrete walls painted a baby-boy blue with a line of eye-piercing lights hanging over their heads. The back wall was covered from floor to ceiling with a double-sided mirror, allowing whoever stood on the opposing side to see things just as clearly as if they were in the same room. The woman, CARTER her tag deemed her, undid their handcuffs, nodding for them to sit in the three chairs that had been pulled up to the metal table.

Steve was the first to plop down, rubbing at his wrist nervously. Tony, packing a great deal less shame, was next, Bruce falling in at the far right. No one spoke until the door was slotted closed behind them, until Carter and Sousa had taken seats, also.

“Well, boys,” Carter said in a wry, British voice. She seemed like a lady of no-nonsense, like she wanted to get to the center of trouble with as little time wasted as could be managed. “We found a Mercedes belonging to an Ivan Romanov the third in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard at a few minutes after five this morning. It is over at the impound lot waiting for you all to pick it up.”

A tight ball of worry that had been growing more and more painful since that doe-eyed bell boy rolled up in a police car rather than Bruce’s step-father’s precious vehicle went lax. “Oh thank god,” Bruce breathed, rucking both hands through his hair. “Is it alright?”

“As of this morning, yes it was,” Sousa replied. Now Sousa? Sousa appeared to be a guy of patience, except in instances where idiots like them stumbled in and they were made to spout their tales of tom-foolery in the hopes no charges would be pressed. A character study didn’t matter, though. Anastasia was alright; Ivan’s precious, third child who’s exact ranking between he, it and Natasha was often dubious, was _okay._

“There was a note, too,” Carter added, holding up a damp napkin gingerly between two, pristinely painted fingers. “All the meters were taken, but here’s four hundred dollars. Signed, the Avengers.” She plunked it down so the three of them could see. If it were possible, Steve’s shoulders sank lower in shame. The poor guy was probably thinking how Sarah would react if she saw him in such a situation.

“However,” Sousa countered, leaning into the table with a little smirk playing at his mouth, “we can’t get you three in front of a judge until Monday, which means you all will be spending the weekend here.”

Tony, Steve and Bruce all let out squawks of protest. “Sir,” Steve said, wide-eyed and breaking out his Captain’s voice. “Our friend is missing—he’s supposed to be getting married first thing Sunday!”

Carter raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “That’s tough luck. You three stole a police car.”

“We didn’t… steal it, exactly,” Bruce objected, weakly.

“Yeah! What the Life Partner said!” Tony uttered. “We _found_ it. If anything, I think we should get out of jail free— _ha_ —on principle that we brought it back unharmed.”

“Um, no _,_ ” Sousa countered, just as unimpressed as his partner. “ _We_ found it thanks to the tracking device all of our vehicles have in them.”

“I used to head the homicide department in New York,” Carter said, growing more and more irritated as each second lapsed. Bruce, though he knew nothing about the woman other than the fact she seemed to be damn good at her job and that Sousa kept glancing at her, unmistakably fond with the sort of expression Bruce would turn on Betty, panicked. She seemed like the sort of person they would need on their side if they were to get out of this situation quickly and without a great deal of pain. “Daniel and I see fools like you all each and every day.”

“‘ _Oooh,_ we’re in Vegas!’” Sousa mocked.

Carter adopted a very American voice, sickly-sweet and pointedly stupid-sounding. “‘While we’re here, we may as well get black-out drunk and do every foolish thing we’ve ever considered _ever_!’”

“‘Yeah! Let’s steal a cop car because it’ll make us look _so_ cool!’” Sousa even fist-pumped, whooping loudly.

Carter’s façade fell away and her face dropped into a heavy scowl. “That is not how things work here.”

“ _Not_ here,” Sousa agreed, sobering, too. He looked as though he were on the verge of brandishing a stern finger at them.

Tony looked up sharply, as though he’d just had a divine conversation and equally divine answers had been bestowed on him. “Detective Sousa? Detective Carter, is it?”

“We’re both Detective Sousa,” Carter-Sousa said, brown eyes softening long enough to turn to the male-Sousa for a brief instant before flicking back to Tony. Immediately, they went hard as stones. “Yes, what is it?”

“My name is Tony Stark—please, no pictures: I’m not looking so dapper today—,” and despite the seriousness of this situation, despite how any one wrong word could result in their being locked up and missing Clint and Nat’s wedding, Steve _sucked_ his teeth. “and you probably know me, may have seen me on the news for dealing in advanced weapons manufacturing. You pair of highly intelligent individuals may have also seen it when I halted weapons production and turned Stark industries into a producer of clean energy.”

Carter and Sousa were lapsing into that haze of being unimpressed yet again. Bruce grit his teeth and forced a smile. “Do you have a point here, Tony?”

“Yes, I was beginning to wonder that myself,” Sousa murmured, brushing a stray lock of black hair off his forehead.

“I do!” Tony claimed, exposing his palms as though to say _easy, easy._ “What I’m trying to say is that I’m no hero. You two? The both of you put your lives on the line every day to protect the citizens of this, erm, _eccentric_ city. I’m also, ah, assuming the reason you’re both so angry with us is due to the car we took belongs to you?”

Carter’s eyes narrowed.

Steve gulped.

“I thought so,” Tony said, a shade paler beneath the bright fluorescent lighting of the interrogation room. “I’m not a police officer. And as I said, I’m no hero. But in the days I was overseeing the selling of my weapons, if I found a truck carrying a couple of nukes went missing and the press leapt on that before anything could be done about it, even if it was a true accident, such an incident would’ve made my company and I look terrible.”

Comprehension dawned on Steve the same time it landed, graceful as a train wreck, in Bruce’s lap. _Keep talking, Science Bro. We’re almost in the clear_.

“What are you getting at, pal?” Sousa asked, tipping a few inches closer to his wife. She, in turn, inclined so their forearms were pressed together.

“I’m saying our friend that we’ve known for almost twenty years—,” _nice stretch, Tony, come on_ , “—is getting married and we’ve lost him in one of the wildest cities in America. That’s our fault and we’ve got to mop up our screw up before the bride-to-be finds out and steals a private jet to come and slaughter us all. I’m saying two highly skilled cops allowed their cruiser to be stolen by a couple of blundering idiot tourists and that’s the last thing you’d like to tell your boss, right?

“And I think,” Tony said, folding his hands on the table and leaning into them with that shit-eating grin Pepper hated spreading across his face. “That we can work out a deal, no?”

Carter went still, her entire being freezing into a block of consideration. Had Bruce not known Natasha as long as he had, he would have slipped under the table in fear of the powerful woman across from them. She gave all of them a long look-over, gaze seeming to slide beneath their skin and worm into their minds, plucking out their Achilles’ heals and filing them away for her use. She scrawled something that Bruce could not see on the clipboard she’d been holding since entering the room and  passed it to Sousa.

A laugh bubbled out of Sousa, a raw, boisterous thing, as though she’d told him the world’s funniest joke.

Steve, once more, swallowed audibly.

 

\-----

 

They were lead into a classroom-like set-up where the children from the tour were seated, all their youthful faces settled into some level of dead-bored. Carter brushed a curl from her face, smirking at them. “Alright boys and girls,” she said, too chipper for anything good to occur in the next few minutes. “The three men at my right have kindly volunteered to demonstrate what happens when one is shocked by a stun-gun.”

Every kid, the little bastards, _oooooh_ ’ed appreciatively.

“Wait, what?” Steve yelped, as Tony ripped off his glasses and gapped.

Bruce, on the other hand, _stared._ “This can’t be legal,” he hissed.

“Neither is grand theft auto,” Sousa muttered back sweetly.

Carter had picked up a black device from her belt and was holding it high enough for each kid to see it clearly from all corners of the room. “A stun-gun can be used two ways,” she told them, having a ball. “Up close and personal—,” before anything could be done, she’d descended on Steve and slammed the end where electricity coursed into the body of the assailant into the meat of the blond’s shoulder.

With a high-pitched shriek, he crumpled. Smoke emanated from the end of the stun-gun and Carter blew it, smiling like this was something that occurred on a daily basis. “What the _shit_?” Tony whispered. “We’ve walked into a room filled with sadists.”

“Welcome to hell,” Sousa snarked, lowly “Population: you three.”

“And who are you, the warden?”

“Tony,” Bruce snapped, glancing only briefly over his shoulder at the brunette as he knelt beside Steve. He touched the side of Steve’s neck, found him shaking and with a racing pulse. “You alright?”

Steve groaned.

“He’s fine,” Carter said, unconcerned. “Now, who would like to come and demonstrate long-distance, eh?” She gave an inviting little wave with the stun-gun. Hands shot up all around, even Sousa’s. “You,” Carter decided. “Come on up, sweetheart.”

It was the boy who’s phone Tony had broken, looking smug and vengeful. The shattered device he’d cleaned off the floor of the station was spread in front of him on the desk of which he was seated. The entire walk up down the carpeted walkway, his gleaming blue eyes were on Tony and Tony had not looked away from him, either.

(Bruce, faintly, could hear Tony chanting: “Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck,_ ” below his breath.)

“Now,” Carter settled the stun-gun in the boy’s hand, “All you must do to successfully carry out this procedure is point, aim and shoot. There is a red laser dot to guide you.” And there was. Steady as anything, the boy lifted the stun-gun, moving predator-slow up Tony’s body, from foot to thigh. The dot lingered at his groin, straying north only when Tony curled back a lip in challenge and covered his crotch with his hands.

“I like your intensity,” Carter murmured approvingly. “In your palm, you’re holding fifty-thousand volts of electricity. Do not be afraid of it—”

The dot came to rest on Tony’s forehead.

The boy fired.

Two needles shooting a back-straightening charge into Tony’s bones landed in the bridge of his nose and through one of his cheeks. He wobbled, letting out a Homer Simpson-esque “Doh! Doh!” as he fought against the high voltage. The boy was still holding down on the trigger, seemed to squeeze even harder as Tony gained control of his legs, moving towards the boy and reaching out a hand like a bastardized version of Frankenstein’s monster, aiming to choke the kid, to knock the stun-gun away—

“Some need an extra kick,” Sousa said, producing his own weapon and slamming down another charge to Tony’s back.

Tony, in turn, collapsed across the front row of tables, making a pair of twin girls recoil, both screaming.

Bruce felt like he was going to vomit. The children cheered for the round-faced boy with the shattered phone, hollering their approval. “This one has one more charge left,” Sousa said, passing his stun-gun to his wife.

In the end, Carter chose a thin Asian girl with her hair done in a neat French braid. “The same instructions as before,” she said, her mouth lifting higher at the corners as Sousa gave the back of Bruce’s legs a kick forward. “Point, aim, and shoot.”

“You really don’t have to do this,” Bruce said, holding up his hands in surrender. He wished he had a white flag. Did children even know what a white flag symbolized? “You seem like a bright young girl with a level head—”

And with that, he received fifty thousand volts right to the gut, crumpling with a shout, just as Steve and Tony had done before him. The room went lightning-blue around the edges.

 

\-----

 

“That was police brutality,” Steve ranted, rucking up dust as he paced back and forth outside the doors to the impound lot. “You can’t just go around _tasing_ people.”

Tony jabbed a finger at the bruises on his cheek and nose. “Shut your fucking mouth, pretty boy. Least you didn’t get it to the face.”

“Or the gut,” Bruce grunted. Ever since Steve had scooped them both off the floor of the mock-classroom, he’d not let go of his mid-section once.

He felt the righteous air in his shoulders deflate. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I know I am,” Tony sung, just as Bruce mumbled: “Shut up, Tony.”

 

\-----

 

Much to the relief of them all, the Mercedes was perfectly unharmed. A bit dusty, but otherwise there was not a dent in sight.

Bruce drove, carefully navigating them to a gravel curb a few miles away so they could safely get out and search beneath the seats and in nooks and crannies otherwise untouched if they were sitting down. Tony searched beneath the sun visors, Steve digging around in the back. “Hey, there’s a boot back here.”

Steve tossed up a black thing with the hint of a heal. The leather was real and neatly stitched, expensive as hell by the looks of it. “Is that a man’s or woman’s?” Bruce asked, brows raising.

Tony snuck a peak at the inside of the shoe. “Man’s size six. Huh. Hate to think about the size of this guy’s—”

From behind all of them, there was a thunk in the trunk.

“Did you all hear—?”

Another thunk, more insistent this time.

“Shit!” Tony yelled, clambering out the passenger seat. Steve launched himself outside with Bruce hot on his heels.

“Clint! He’s in the fucking trunk!”

“Come on, come on!” Tony urged, shaking Bruce. “Open it!” The smaller, bespectacled man trembled, nearly fumbling the set of shining keys as he aimed one end into the lock, giving it a twist. The trunk flew up. “Clint!” they all grinned, relief shaking warm and light down Steve’s spine.

It was not Clint.

A man naked as the day he was born launched himself at Steve, his genitals a little too close to Steve’s face to be completely comfortable. He was brandishing a crowbar, likely the thing he was using to catch their attention in the first place, to beat the ever-loving shit out of Steve—his back, his arm, his ribs. In that moment, Steve was thankful for his army training, or else he’d have never been able to throw the guy off and punch him in the face.

That didn’t stop the psychopath from lunging at Tony, swinging the crowbar viciously as he went. The guy had dark, lanky hair, a long nose and cheekbones that could cut fingertips. His eyes were very green and they flared bright with loathing. “Get the fuck off me!” Tony shouted, throwing  a punch that landed home on the guy’s jaw.

Of course, the man rounded on Bruce.

“Woah!” Bruce said, holding up his hands. “Easy,” he soothed. “Easy. I’m sorry. We’re sorry. I’m sure all of this was one huge mishap.” The guy was twirling the crowbar, that Steve could see from his crumpled position on the ground. The inside of his mouth tasted of rock and copper. Tony, beside him, was spitting out blood. “None of this is your fault. None of it. If you just stay calm, I’m sure we can find you some pants to wear.”

The guy squinted at Bruce, just for a minute, before pitching the crowbar directly at Bruce’s face. Bruce fell backward, yelping when his ass slammed into the earth. He clutched at his nose, the maniac’s weapon of choice clattering few feet away in the dust.

Even in his state of pain, Steve could hear the sound of bare feet slapping on rock, retreating in the direction opposite to the road.

Tony, the first to regain control of his vocal chords, growled. “What—the— _fuck_ —just—happened?”

It took a moment, but Steve was able to say: “We were attacked.”

A small pebble, no larger than a penny, was flung Steve’s way. It bounced off the end of his nose. “Well thank _you_ , Captain Obvious. On the next episode of Sherlock, clouds are white and the ground is hard!”

“Children,” Bruce grit out. Steve forced himself to turn on his side, to look up at the man to inspect any damage that had been done. Other than a slightly bloody nose and a little cut above his brow, Bruce appeared alright. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“You can start by telling us who the hell that guy was! He seemed to listen to you!” Tony said, crawling so he leaned heavily on the side of the Mercedes. His feet were spread before him, his breathing loud and damp at close proximity.

“I don’t know him,” Bruce said, pushing into a sitting position with a wince. “But I do know why we don’t remember anything last night.”

Steve went still. Tony did, too. “Spit it out, Banner,” he snapped.

Bruce swallowed, tensing, as though bracing for another swing from the crowbar. “I, uh, put something in our drinks on the roof.”

“You _what_?”

“I slipped out to go to the liquor store when we first got here,” Bruce said, talking quick as to get the burning words out of him faster. “And I met a guy who said he had a bit of Ecstasy. I thought— _stupidly_ —that a little pick-me-up would do all of us good, yanno? But I guess the dealer switched up the bags and—”

The fuse within Steve reached the end.

With a burst of movement, he exploded.

“You son of a bitch!” Steve screamed, pouncing on Bruce and pinning him to the dirt. His vision was clouded red, each and every one of his muscles trembling with a blinding fury. “We don’t know where Clint is because of your reckless mistake! I can’t remember saying “I do” to the man who is arguably the love of my life! I can’t remember the first words we said to each other after ten fucking years of being away from each other!”

Before Steve could swing on Bruce, Tony was there, locking an arm around Steve’s throat and executing a solid sleeper hold. “Calm down, Cap,” Tony said softly. “Calm down.”

“No, _you_ calm down!” Steve snarled, trying with all his strength to rip away.

“I know where each and every pressure point in your body is, bub,” Tony said, right at his ear. “I’m not afraid to press one or twelve.”

“He _drugged_ us, Tony! Aren’t you the least bit upset with that?”

Steve felt rather than saw Tony shrug. “We wouldn’t have taken the dose if he’d have offered it to us. It was a simple mistake from a shitty drug dealer. He just wanted us—wanted _you_ —to loosen up and have a good time. Isn’t that right, Brucey?”

“Yes,” Bruce said, tipping into Steve’s line of sight so Steve could see the way he was nodding, pale and earnest and silhouetted by the blazing sun. “Yes, that’s absolutely right.”

“It doesn’t change what you took from me,” he snapped. A pause. “Doesn’t change the fact that Clint is still missing and we have no idea where to look for him.”

Tony applied a bit more pressure to his throat. “Okay. When I let you up, we’re going to get ourselves together, take a few deep breaths and go back to the hotel. Okay? You hearing me, Rogers?”

Steve, still buzzing in all his rage, in mourning for what was lost on him, grunted.

“Maybe Clint’s stumbled in from wherever the hell he went and he’s sleeping off a hangover on the couch. Bruce. Buddy. Never do a nice thing like that again—at least don’t buy from a third-rate schmuck in front of an ABC store, yeah? It’s cool: least it’s not a stranger who drugged us. Go ahead and climb in the car. Get her running for us.”

“It’s not _cool_ , Stark,” Steve pressed, striking up another round of wriggling in Tony’s hold.

Tony, using the flat of his hand, smacked the flat of Steve’s throat, causing him to choke on his own breath and spit. “I’m sorry you can’t remember your big, fat gay reunion with Barnes. If it’s any consolation, I think he’s going to stick around. I think,” Tony gave Steve a little shake, meant to knock any loose wires back into place, reignite their sparks of intelligence. “That you have a million more memories to forge with him and will do so after we climb in this car and we get Clint back.”

He was let go, abruptly, Tony wriggling out from under him. “Now clean your happy ass up, Rogers. Ivan will skin us both if we track dust and shit into his baby. Hell, _I_ will skin us both if we track dust and shit into his baby.”

 

\-----

 

It was only when they were standing outside the door to the villa that Steve let out a strangled noise and clapped a hand on Tony and Bruce’s shoulders, abruptly stopping them in their tracks. He pitched his voice low. “What if the eagle got out when we were gone.”

“Fuck,” Bruce whispered.

“I forgot about Baldy,” Tony groaned. He pressed an ear to the door. “How did we even get it in the bathroom, anyway?”

That heat welled up within Steve again. He turned to Bruce. “I don’t know, Stark. Because I don’t _remember_.”

“Knock it off, Rogers,” Tony said, for Bruce’s benefit. The curly-haired man had been tense and silent the entire car-ride back, leaving a few cautious feet between he and Steve. “Keep it down. Last thing we need is to scare your nipples’ mascot if it did get lose.”

Steve grit his teeth. He wished, quite abruptly, that he’d just ducked out of the whole bachelor party thing, that he’d stayed cooped up in the safety of his loft with his paints and walking a rapidly cracking line with Sharon beside him. A breakup? He could handle that. Hell, they were basically split anyway given Steve had gotten fucking _married_. “I hate you.”

“I hate myself, too,” Tony said, the air of agreement in his voice a little too strong for Steve to not feel a touch uncomfortable. “Now shut up and come on.”

They pushed their way inside, keeping their footsteps light and near-noiseless. Bruce gently slotted the door closed. “We don’t want to make any sudden movements if it did escape,” Steve said, trying and failing to keep his mind off the piece of information he’d been made to digest.

A familiar woman, hair pulled back in a stern, dark bun joined by a pair of pale, cunning eyes appeared from the kitchen area. “Maria?” Steve breathed just as they were rounding the corner into the living room.

Nick Fury stood slowly from the piano bench from where he’d had his feet folded atop the collapsed baby grand. “You care to explain why in the flying fuck my motherfucking eagle is in your motherfucking bathroom, Rogers?”

 

\-----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who was the crazy man the boys had trapped in the trunk? Will Fury burn the boy's asses? Next chapter coming soon!
> 
> Kudo and comment, fam! That stuff gives me life! <3


	7. Stolen Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A giggle erupted from Tony, loud and pleased. “I sent dick pics to Pep last night.”
> 
> Steve, long suffering, pinched the bridge of his nose. “You always send Pepper pictures of your dick.”
> 
> “Yeah, but they’re Vegas dick pics, Rogers, Jesus Christ, there’s even fireworks in the background of one of them!” He sounded far too gleeful for a man who’d been drugged the previous night and was standing, looking like a run over pile of garbage, in the midst of a pharmacy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in four hours. Any grammar mistakes are mine as I did not do my usual sweep before posting this. ENJOY!!!!

\-----

 

Nicolas J. Fury, some eight years previous when Steve was just a grunt in the army with the hope of at least _trying_ to have a hand in putting a lid on the increasing rise of terrorism in the Middle East, had headed Steve’s unit, SHIELD. He’d been a man who was constantly half a dozen steps ahead of everyone else, including the enemy more often than not, and one hell of a shot with a pistol, or generally anything that could be wielded to cause pain.

Steve had not seen him since he left the army, some six years ago.

And apparently, he, Tony, Clint and Bruce had broken into the mansion he maintained in Las Vegas, the abode of his retirement, and stolen his eagle, a bird he’d bought for “shits and gigs”.

“Well,” Fury pressed, utterly unimpressed. If Steve hadn’t faced such scrutiny before, he’d have been an ash heap on the ground for all the enraged hate-fire in Fury’s one good eye. He’d learned, quite quickly, to stare at the eye-patch instead: at least the eye-patch could not light them on fire then piss on their equally blazing graves.

“Um,” Bruce said, lamely.

“I asked you all a question,” Fury said. “And I’d like to have an answer before I get my dear friend, here—,” a gesture to Maria, who had her hands folded behind her back, no doubt gripping a pistol. “—to speed up the process.”

Fury leveled them all with another glare that made Bruce curl into himself in the manner of a hermit crab and Tony go a few shades whiter. Even though his face didn’t change in the slightest, Steve knew that expression from his army days: _I will bleed you dry, dance on your bones and cut off all your fingers if you so much as think of doing something stupid like this again_. “Why in the flying fuck would you steal my eagle, Cap?” Fury’s mouth thinned, eyebrows shooting up, “Hm?”

Blood, boiling and rising fast in Steve’s cheeks, colored him ruby. “I was drugged, sir.”

That took him aback, his expression still unwavering. There was simply a miniscule flutter of his pupils. “By whom?”

As one, Tony and Steve silently turned to Bruce. “I told you repeatedly that it was an accident!” Bruce said, dipping his head and shedding his glasses to swipe at the lenses with his shirttail despite there being no need to do so.

“Sir, we have no memory of what happened last night,” Steve explained, tipping his face over his shoulder to address Maria, too. They’d been good friends: she whooped his ass in poker and he’d slip her little cartoons dramatizing Fury’s baldness whenever a particularly bad op occurred. Steve had emailed her all of three weeks ago, sending her a recipe for his mother’s vegetable stew. “We’ve been all around the city trying to find our friend… whom we have no memory of loosing.”

“That does not explain why the fuck you’d want to steal my eagle,” Fury said, finally rising to his feet. Steve didn’t think he’d changed lengthy, sweeping leather jackets since he’d known the old man, as this one rippled around his calves, fluttering into place a few seconds after Fury stilled.

“Uh, if I may?” Tony said, buffing a hand over the side of his face. There was still a bandage on his arm from where, presumably, the eagle had attacked him the night before. “Hi, yes, hello. Tony Stark, pleasure to meet you both—well, you less so. I’ve gotta say, though: you bear a striking resemblance to that one guy in _Pulp Fiction._ ” Fury grew impossibly _more_ unimpressed. “Okay, okay. _Okay._ You don’t like pop culture, I feel you. You must not get out very much… Long story short: we tend to dumb shit when we’re fucked up.”

“Wait,” Bruce said, clearing his throat with a small cough. “How did you both find us?”

“Does the eagle have a microchip?” Steve asked, flicking his eyes to Maria. She shook her head, expression schooled to be as unchanging as Fury’s. He chanced shooting her a smile and felt himself relax when he saw the edges of her face melt a bit.

“Actually,” Maria told them, lowering her arms. Steve could see, now, a purple jacket being gently held in her right hand. “One of you had dropped this outside the eagle’s pen. It had your wallet and room key in the pockets.”

“That’s Clint’s!” Tony burst, high-pitched and punching air. “Holy hell! That’s our missing guy!”

Fury snorted. “I don’t give a fuck if he’s the King of Wakanda. What I’m concerned about if how the shit my bird is going to get from point A, here, to point B, my house.”

“Wait,” Steve said, raising a hand by means of a silent askance of truce. “Did either of you have eyes on Clint? Was he alright?”

“I don’t know,” Maria said, brow furrowing just enough for the carefully drawn shapes to shift a bit over her eyes. “He was sleeping and I was across town. Had either of us on the scene, this entire situation would have been stopped _very_ quickly.”

Bruce edged forward, raising his hand as though to be called on by a teacher. Fury just jerked his head, narrowing his gaze further. There was an audible swallow. “Do you think it would be possible if we could check your house? See if there are any clues about our friend’s whereabouts?”

Fury’s mouth thinned. Tony and Bruce moved sharply for Fury to slip between them and in the direction of the door. Quite briefly, without her senior officer seeing, Maria squeezed Steve’s bicep, turning to head out, too. “Of course it’s possible. How else do you think you’re going to get my bird back?”

Tony, quite sure to embody the complete _what the hell_ that was screaming through Steve’s mind in that instant, sucked his teeth in protest. “What is that supposed to mean?”

By then, Maria and Fury were at the door, Maria pulling it open. “You three got him in here: it’s only fair you three put him back.” With a flap of black material, Fury was gone. Until—“Oh!” Fury said, his hand slipping into the crack of the door just before it snapped shut: “Watch out. Uncle Sam bites. He sure does like fingers. And eyes. And particularly small male genitalila.”  

Steve’s former army colonel was likely far gone by the time Tony managed to shout: “I am not _small_!” at the closed door.

 

\-----

 

“We could call Animal Control,” Tony pointed out, five minutes later once they had all managed to calm down.  

Steve grunted, tipping against the counter. Without the impending threat of being killed by Fury loitering over his head, his thoughts turned to Bucky—where was he? At work? Was he missing Steve? Had he even thought about Steve…? He shook himself, trying to direct his mind back to the more pressing matter at hand.“Yeah, and go to prison for keeping a national symbol in our bathroom? Thanks, but no thanks.”

“I’m a doctor,” Bruce said, suddenly.

“Yes, Brucey, we know.”

Patiently, Bruce looked over the rim of his glasses right at Tony. “I can prescribe a tranquilizer.”

Gleeful, happy as hell that things seemed to be looking up for them, Tony clapped his hands together, tipping back the remains of a soda he’d plucked up from the counter. Steve did not wish to consider how long it had been sitting there. “Good, because I kinda sorta need my billion dollar face to go unharmed and Roger’s husband seems to be pretty fond of his baby blues. We don’t want them getting gouged out by Baldy, do we?”

“It’s a good plan,” Steve told them, but mainly Bruce, as Tony was worrying at his cell phone, his mouth drawn into a firm line. “What is it, Stark?”

“Pepper just texted me that Natasha’s getting on edge since Clint hasn’t returned her calls.”

Steve felt his back pocket shudder. He patted around and drew out his phone the same time Bruce did. When they offered them up for comparison, Natasha’s all lower-cased messages were the same: _seriously. tell clint to call me._ Then, _pronto._ Followed by: _i will steal a stark industries jet and fly myself out there._

That had been over an hour ago.

“One step at a time,” Bruce said, cringing as he thumbed through his inbox, the light of it dancing across his glasses lenses. “I passed a pharmacy last night. Come on.”

 

\-----

 

Tony and Steve leaned against the candy aisle of a beaten up Rite-Aid, the latter’s eyes flicking up every few moments to make sure Bruce was alright; out of the three of them, the graying man was the most collected. Despite the rage lingering in Steve’s veins over Bruce’s fuck-up, he couldn’t help but feel terrible for his friend, at the guilt he must be feeling. Sweat stains formed parenthesis on the back of Bruce’s purple button-up and he looked like he could use comb and a shave.

Tony let out a sharp laugh that startled Steve. “What?” he wondered, a touch weary.

A giggle erupted from Tony, loud and pleased. “I sent dick pics to Pep last night.”

Steve, long suffering, pinched the bridge of his nose. “You always send Pepper pictures of your dick.”

“Yeah, but they’re _Vegas_ dick pics, Rogers, Jesus Christ, there’s even fireworks in the background of one of them!” He sounded far too gleeful for a man who’d been drugged the previous night and was standing, looking like a run over pile of garbage, in the midst of a pharmacy.

“You’re such a pig, Tony,” Steve sighed. The pharmacist was putting a clear liquid into a glass bottle, carefully measuring for preciseness on a metal scale. Bruce drummed his fingers, nervously, on the granite countertop.  

“Oink, oink, motherfucker,” Tony said a bit too loud, sending a mother and her young child patrolling the other end of the sweet aisle scowling, backtracking away from the solitary weirdo and Steve, the poor guy who really needed to keep said weirdo under control.

“How you got a good woman like Pepper Potts, I’ll never know.” (He did know, actually: Tony was a good guy, underneath his ego the size of New York and the sass, and he probably had the biggest heart out of their group of friends, if Steve were honest. He’d never let Tony know that. The guy might think Steve actually _likes_ him.)

Tony hummed, plucking up a pack of Reese’s cups and a Kit Kat bar the size of his head. He compared them both for a moment then tossed them back onto their allotted shelves. “That’s like asking where the Holy Grail is or if Bigfoot’s real, Rogers. The _world_ will never find the answer to that question.” The smile Tony sent Steve was a rare self-depreciating smile. It made Steve’s chest ache for having been so rude to his friend without thinking.

To distract himself, Steve pulled out his own phone and carefully checked his calls. There were those made to Clint, one to Tony, three to Bruce and twenty-seven to a contact labeled  with approximately one thousand heart-eyed emojis following it. Just staring at what was obvious Bucky’s number made Steve’s chest tighten with emotion. “Tony what does ‘bae’ mean?”

Tony had plucked up a packet of Redvines, tearing into it and holding three between his teeth, when Steve had asked his question. The twists of red candy plopped to the floor. “What does—?” the other man spluttered. “Before anyone else, Rogers! I suddenly get why Romanoff calls you ‘grandpa’! I mean the church clothes were one thing but you didn’t know what one of the most revolutionary terms to grace the twenty-first century means? Mother of God- I have failed, I have failed. Dishonor on me,” he’d started to wave his hands around wildly, but Tony did that more often than not so Steve didn’t so much as blink. “Dishonor on my cow—”

Before Tony could shoot off another quote from a Disney film, Bruce came their way with a massive bottle of pills and a plastic wrapped pack of syringes. “Alright, let’s go.”

Tony, relentless as always, “Life Partner, you know what bae means, right?”

“Why is that relevant?” Bruce snorted, pushing his glasses up on his nose with his finger. He flicked his eyes to Steve then shook a finger between Steve and Tony. “Do you know where he’s going with this?”

“Unfortunately,” Steve muttered, glancing at the opened pack of candy in Tony’s hand. “You’ve got to pay for those.”

Easy as breathing, Tony tugged out his wallet and plucked out a one hundred dollar bill. He was very quick to fold the green bill into a small airplane, rearing back (and narrowly missing the skittles bags behind him) and sent Ben Franklyn into flight right onto the check-out counter under the nose of the young woman manning the register. Tony fired off finger guns, calling: “Keep the change!” as Bruce tugged him outside into the aggressive heat of Nevada.

“Man, I’m glad we live in New York,” Bruce said, squinting up at the sun. He swung the keys to Anastasia around on his ring finger and used the little remote to unlock the doors. “I think I’d die of heat stroke, otherwise.”

A hum of agreement from Tony. “I think, besides the strip and a damn fine Elvis song, Vegas is just a bunch of illegal substances and flashing lights. Good for a weekend, shit for life.”

“Rude, Tony,” Steve said, only half paying attention as he flicked through the messages he’d sent in the last sixteen hours. “Plenty of very fine people live here—”

But Steve faltered just before his hand touched down on the handle to the car door. “Oh mother fucking fuck,” he swore, swiping a hand through his already wild hair. A blush spilt into his cheeks at the sight of his own penis on his phone screen, sent to BAE 5EVER _over a dozen times_.

Bruce rolled down the driver’s side window concernedly while Tony reached across him to honk the horn. He had not noticed them slip into the vehicle. “Steve you look flushed. Are you alright?”

Those stupid ass sunglasses Tony was so fond of had made it back to his nose, despite one of the lenses being broken. “He’s a blushing virgin,” Tony hooted. His equally stupid brown eyes flicked down to the phone in Steve’s hands then back up to his face. A beat of quiet. “OH SHIT YOU SENT BUCKY DICK PICS!” The heir to Stark Industries slapped a hand onto the steering wheel with enough pressure to have the horn honking yet again. “DEAR SWEET BABY CHRIST! When we find Clint, this is gonna be _so_ much funnier!”

“Oh my _god,_ ” Steve groaned. Bruce turned to pat his head in a small “there, there” motion. “I’m going to break my foot off in your ass.”

“Not if Bucky lets something loose in yours first!”

 

\-----

 

They had to make one last stop before the hotel, as that was at a surprisingly bright pet shop, of which a pack of dead mice were purchased. Once they were back at Caesar’s Palace, safely tucked away into the demolished halls of the villa, Bruce carefully filled one of the syringes with the “night-night juice” as Tony had taken to calling it and was gingerly injecting a full dose into the belly of three little white mice.

“This effect should be near-instant,” Bruce murmured, lowering the final mouse to the table with a small grimace. He capped off the remnants of the tranquilizer and flicked his eyes up to Tony and Steve. “Now someone has to go in and give these to Uncle Sam.”

“Nose goes!” Tony bellowed, finger landing home on the tip of his nose.

Bruce, quick as a whip, followed suit.

Steve threw up his hands in annoyance. “Oh come on,” he groused. “This is not fair. Bruce, pal, you’re my friend and all, but I think it should be you that goes in there. You got us all into this mess—I can’t remember my _wedding_ for crying out loud!”

“Grandpa,” Tony coughed once, pointed and paired with an eye roll. “Rogers, he said he was sorry, okay? Let that sink in. Sorry,” Tony drew out the word, like Steve was a small child who knew very, very little about pretty much _everything_. “That particular complaint is getting old: if you quit crying about it, I’ll throw you a wedding when we get back. I’ll even pump enough money in your bank account for you to take a leave of absence from work to have a super hot romantic getaway with Buckaroo for six months.”

Though Steve felt the lining of his mouth go dry at the images this declaration brought forth, Tony plowed on, waggling his brow like he knew exactly what path Steve had been about to walk down. “Just do it. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can maybe find Clint.” He gave a considering pause. “The sooner you can get back to your man.”

“Fine,” Steve said, snatching up the mice by the tails and stalking to the bathroom door. At some point or another, one of them had hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the polished knob.

If he was the possessor of a time machine, Steve would have journeyed backward to punch himself in the groin.

“Go on!” Tony whisper-hissed. Steve, without turning around to give Tony the pleasure, flipped him the bird. “Name a time and a place, lover boy!”

He physically had to bite down on a growl. _Get it over with, Rogers. Clint’s out there somewhere, probably cold and confused and alone and bringing the eagle back to Fury could be the only hint at trying to find him._ Steve pushed his way into the bathroom, blowing out a steady breath as he pushed the door up in his wake.

The eagle, Uncle Sam, was a tall, regal-looking creature. With the signature white cap of feathers from the shoulder up and a gleaming set of brown feathers, gold beak twitching, just looking at the eagle made Steve feel like he’d did something blasphemous, like burning an American flag or not holding a hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance. “Hey, buddy,” Steve cooed, pitching his voice to a decibel that, hopefully, would not startle it. “I’m sorry about what my friends and I did to you last night. None of us were in our right minds and I brought these mighty tasty mice in here as a peace offeri—”

Uncle Sam lunged.

Steve chucked the mice and was out the bathroom so fast, he was sure smoke rolled up behind him.

He slammed his back against the door, wincing bodily when the hair-raising sound of claws scraped down the wood. “Quick!” Tony said. The rat bastard was still safely across the room, clutching Bruce’s sleeve like some Scarlet O’Hara of the present. “Serenade him with ‘America the Beautiful’!”

“Fuck _you_ , Tony!” Steve snapped, chest rising and falling rapidly for a solid minute and a half before he dredged up the courage to press an ear to the door.

There was a disappointed grunt from Uncle Sam, disappointment that he’d not to rip Steve’s face apart, most likely, followed by the sound of feathers fluttering, the clack of claws on the pristine tile of the bathroom. Steve detected a hum as Uncle Sam seemed to locate one of the mice; there was a grand _gulp_ and a clack of the creature’s beak. Two more circuits of the same noise.

A _thump_ as a body sank to the floor.

“Get a sheet,” Steve ordered, pushing away from the door. “I’ve got to phone room service for a luggage cart.”

 

\-----

 

They were quite the sight, pushing a suspicious lump of fabric down the hall, into the elevator and out to the valet. The same beaming kid, Peter, brought Ivan’s car around for them, eyeing the sheet covering Uncle Sam with wide eyes.

“Mr. Stark—,” he began.

Tony jammed a one hundred dollar bill into his hand. “No questions. Tony needs hush-hush time.”

Peter, wide-eyed and glowing with appreciation, bopped his head, going as far as to mime locking up his mouth tight with a key.

Uncle Sam took up the back seat, leaving Steve to sit wedged between Bruce and Tony in the front.

This, unfortunately, was not the worst thing to happen.

Fury had left his card, without any of their notice, on the counter. On its black surface was an address, but no phone number. The title deemed it property of FURY. Halfway out of the city, to the borders of the Vegas slash stretch of endless desert line, Uncle Sam stirred, the motion of the car likely doing wonders at stirring him.

Bruce received a deep gash to the neck, blood belching out of the wound at a worrying rate. Tony shrieked and Steve pushed him out the car. They’d squealed to a stand-still in the midst of a lit tunnel, traffic roaring by them and angered travelers laying heavily into their horns as the three of them tumbled out and away from the little slice of hell in the backseat.

“What the fuck!” Steve yelped. Any anger at Bruce that remained completely withered away: the gash was something fierce—it was more than a penance for the mistake the curly haired man had made. “Bruce, why did the dose wear off so quickly?”

“I’m not that kind of doctor!” Bruce bellowed. The material off the roof was dented sharply as Uncle Sam made to try and remove himself from the confined space. Those talons ripped and shredded at the fine black leather of the seats. “ _NO_!”

Tony looked like he was on the verge of tears. “Ivan is going to rip out my vocal cords. He’s going to think _I_ did this.”

“No he won’t,” Steve said gently, tugging Tony out of the lane next to theirs so cars did not have to swerve so sharply. “Bruce, is your neck alright?”

Bruce touched at the wound, flinching hard. “It stings like hell, but I don’t think I’ll bleed out.”

Steve nodded. They’d have to work with that. “Tony, do you have any auto body repair shop friends you could have fix this?”

Tony swallowed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Then I think we need to start pushing. There’s no way we’re going to safely get back in the car with Uncle Sam lucid.

According to the maps application on Tony’s phone, they had four miles to go.

 

\-----

  **ONE** **DAY PREVIOUS**

 

“You’re late,” Maria said by means of greeting once they’d limped up the neatly paved driveway through the intricate iron gate. Steve had carefully been steering the car by means of gripping the wheel through the driver’s side window, Bruce and Tony working their damndest to push the vehicle closer and closer to the intended destination. “It’s almost twelve-thirty.”

Night had fallen around them, coming to rest on their shoulders as both a blanket to cover the heat of Nevada and as a noose, a sign that the twenty-four hour mark of Clint’s last sighting had come to pass. “We know,” Tony said, groaning inelegantly as he arched his back to pop the kinks out of his spine. “That damn bird woke when we were almost here and attacked us. We’ve been pushing the car for the last three hours.”

“Well maybe,” came Fury’s voice. He arrived with a soft _scuff-scuff_ of his silk red slippers. “This will be a lesson for you all. Don’t steal other people’s shit.”

“While we were waiting,” Maria continued, giving them a wave by means of a signal that they should follow her inside. “We went through the security footage from early this morning. It’s only a few minutes, but your friend is on it.”

They piled onto a neat couch that was surprisingly plush for a man like Fury, who was seated comfortably in a Lay-Z Boy with his hands folded on his chest. Maria took up a post beside him, remote in hand. A jab of her thumb down on a round, blue button, and the screen lit up in black and white.

According to the lettering in the lower right corner, the video was from three-thirty that morning.

Clint was stumbling along the length of concrete next to a spacious pool, arm slung around Steve’s shoulders as Bruce and Tony took up a highly similar stance a few feet behind. The only difference was that Steve was holding out his arm as a mock-tree branch and had Uncle Sam balanced on his bicep. He didn’t even have to pay attention to the laughter filtering into the room to know all of them were thoroughly shit-faced out of their minds, did not have to glance to his right to know that Fury was glowering at him.

His face was burning with embarrassment. Had he been like this the entire night? Was this how Bucky had first made his acquaintance again? By trying to decipher what he was saying through slurred words and howling laughter? Steve itched to shoot Bucky a text, to call him, but he recalled the time and refrained.

“I’ve never been on television before,” Bruce joked, or at least tried to. It fell limp, hanging flat in the tense air around them.

And that was the point when intoxicated Bruce decided to unzip his pants and take a piss in Fury’s pool.

Steve buried his face in his hands as his own intoxicated counterpart was heard _giggling_ on the screen. “It’s like a fire hose!” intoxicated Tony snorted, serving to send them all into near hysterics over the speakers.

Fury had a pricy surround-sound system.

It did not mask Bruce shifting nervously, the roll of his throat as he swallowed. “I think I’ll wait outside.”

“You should do that. Don’t let the door knock you on your ass on the way out.”

The camera footage cut to a few minutes later, where Steve had Uncle Sam on his arm and the bird was nibbling at his hair, almost fond. The lens was angled so the main gates could be seen, the spinning lights of the cop car rolling and blaring away. “Where did you get a police cruiser?” Maria wondered, half impressed, half bemused.

Steve flushed.

Tony had no such restrictions. “We stole it from a couple of cops. It’s a good story to never tell our future grandchildren.”

Maria huffed a laugh.

Intoxicated Steve was chattering a million miles an hour to Uncle Sam, half of the things slipping out of his mouth indistinguishable besides the occasional “Bucky” and “love” and “pouty lips” and “thighs”, though Steve didn’t know what that last one was about. He sank a bit lower in his seat. Clint tugged open the back driver’s door to the cruiser, whooping victoriously as Steve jabbed a finger at the seat and said, “ _In_ ,” to Uncle Sam.

The bird obeyed his order, surprisingly enough, settling on one of the headrests.

 Intoxicated Tony struck up an obnoxious rendition of “Proud to Be an American”, climbing onto the hood of the car and gripping at his heart, practically on the verge of tears by the way his voice wavered dangerously. He swayed a bit too hard, despite the way his feet were planted relatively sturdily on the hood and fell back onto the concrete, his ass making contact with the pavement hard enough to make sober-Steve wince. The idiot Steve had been the night before started laughing so hard his legs gave out and he collapsed backward to the pavement as well, clutching at his left pectoral as Clint violently threw up in one of the bushes.

The screen, thankfully, went black.

Fury’s mouth made a very small sound as it parted, no doubt on the verge of dragging their asses verbally to hell and back when Tony raised his hand. His eyes were shut, tight and resigned. “If you’re going to say anything along the lines of “I hate you all”, “Fuck you guys”, “I’m calling my lawyer”, “You’re all going to die slow, painful deaths,” we’ve heard it all before. We believe you. I think this is the point in time we make our smooth exit and blow this very, very nice popsicle stand. That cool with you, great balls of Fury?”

“Get the hell off my property.”

Tony and Steve scurried out once Steve apologized profusely for what had occurred. They plowed by Maria, Steve craning his neck to call: “I’ll email you once I get back home! We should do lunch one day!”

Mid-run, Tony hook his arm thought Bruce’s and dragged him to the car.

They practically left skid-marks in their haste to go.

Heading back to the city, where the stench of weed was a little stronger and there was an neon sign flashing for GIRLS FOR HIRE twice on each street, Bruce said the very thing Steve had been rolling around in his head: “I think we need to call Nat and tell her what’s happening.”

“I think you’re right,” Steve said, tipping forward on the less desolated half of the backseat to squeeze at Bruce’s shoulder. “She may have heard from Clint by now.”

“If we do,” Tony said, nodding. “We need to sugar coat the shit out everything that happened. Just say we went to a club and we got drugged. Somewhere in the mix, we lost Clint and have been frantically been searching for him since we woke up.”

“Nothing about Bucky, either,” Steve added, a bit quieter. “I want Sharon to hear that from me.”

Bruce pulled over into a vacant motel parking lot, putting the vehicle in park so he could properly tip his forehead against the steering wheel, mournful. “How am I going to explain Anastasia’s state to my dad, huh? He loves this thing almost as much as my mom—you both know that.” It’s true. Steve and Tony were both very much aware of this fact. Anastasia ranked in just below Rebecca Banner-Romanov and slightly above Bruce and Natasha. Arguably.

“Like I said,” Tony told him, reaching out to gently touch Bruce’s wrist. “I know a guy. Besides, it’s just the interior, you know? The exterior is as perfect as it was when we le—”

A black, non-descript suburban came ripping into the lot from the street, slamming into Tony’s side of the car. Given the size ratio between the two vehicles was two to one, with the driver of the suburban having the upper-hand, they were made to skid backward, only coming to a stand-still when they were pushed, screaming in panic at the tops of their lungs, into a light pole. The bulb burst over their heads, shooting out gold sparks of electricity.

The suburban backed off, rolling carefully back as though considering them. Taunting. Luring.

A man climbed out of the back, clad in an emerald suit with his dark hair carefully jelled back and away from his face, the long strands curling around his nape where they were tucked behind his ears. He wore an expression of controlled rage, a face that Steve, quite frankly, was sick and tired of seeing.

“Is…is that the guy from the trunk?” Bruce whispered, horror drenching his voice.

Tony was still, legs locked from where he’d braced himself. “I think it is.”

Through one of the shattered windows, a silky, accented voice sounded in the abrupt silence of the night: “Get out of your vehicle. _Now._ ”

Men in blue, each abnormally tall and stony-faced, were climbing out of the suburban, moving to flank the considerably smaller fellow. “We need to go,” Steve whispered lowly.

“Yeah? No _shit_ , Rogers.”

The man in green snapped his fingers and suddenly they were all being hauled through the window of the car and dropped onto the pavement, hauled up by their lapels, all pressed threateningly along the side of the Mercedes. “I am Loki Laufeyson,” the man in green told them. He gripped an emerald-encrusted cane in his hands, the body of a golden serpent coiling up the onyx length. “Of the Asgardian Laufeysons. You three are thieves and your sticky fingers have plucked from _my_ pockets.”

“What the—?” Bruce began. He didn’t get to wrap up his askance: he was punched in the stomach by one of Loki’s henchmen and doubled over.

“Hey!” Steve snarled. “Back off!”

“No one lays hands on _my_ Bruce!” Tony snapped, equally outraged. He placed a hand on the middle of Bruce’s back, helping him straighten up to his feet. There was faint green tinge along Bruce’s features, his upper lip pulled back over his teeth. He was shaking.

“News flash for you, asshole! We don’t remember anything that happened last night! We were drugged!”

“How _fortunate_ ,” Loki hummed. “You’re full of excuses.”

“Help us out, huh?” Steve snapped.  “What did we “steal” from you?”

One of the henchmen spoke up, shadowing Loki. “You all became real buddy-buddy at a craps table last night. This guy?” A jab at Bruce. “Was on a winning streak—raked in just over a hundred thousand dollars. Boss, here, decided to try his luck and he cleaned you all out. Except,” and by this point, Steve had a good feeling where this was going and could not help but shrink a touch closer to the car. He wished, right then, he had a gun, a knife, anything that could be used to quickly hinder the big men around them without putting him or Tony or Bruce in the immediately line of danger.

Each of the henchmen had guns at their hips. Safety’s off, fully loaded, no doubt.

“ _Except_ , you—,” a gesture thrown off at Tony, “swiped the chips and ran off.”

“That doesn’t sound like us,” Steve said, squaring his shoulders. He tried to casually shake out his arms just in case he had to throw a punch, tried to work the tension from his shoulders with little success. “Tony has plenty of money. One hundred grand is pocket lint to him.”

“He said,” Loki murmured, looking down his long nose at all of them, “that he was going to use the winnings to buy you—,” a flick of a perfectly filed fingertip at Steve, “—and your husband a love nest. Charming.”

Steve planted his hands on his hips, turning slowly to Tony. “I was under the influence,” the man in the spotlight blurted. “Thus, I cannot be held accountable for what it is I did.”

“I beg to differ,” Loki crooned.

“This is all just one big misunderstanding,” Bruce said, wagering a step forward. The same henchman that had punched him in the stomach sidled closer, too, raising a fist in warning. Bruce fell back, his backside pressed against the car. “I’m sure this is not as big of a deal as it is being made to seem.”

His words were not the right ones to say, as Loki sharply swung out his staff and nailed Tony, the closest person to him, in the gut. It was the first true sign of emotion and it was harsh, bone-deep. “If it was “not as big of a deal” as I believe it to be, then why, when I calmly approached you all did this one—,” another hit at Tony, this time across his shoulders, as he had folded in half to nurse the first blow, “—grab me and throw me in the trunk of your vehicle, hmm?”  Loki spun the cane in his hand, lowering it back to the ground like nothing had occurred.

“You called him your lucky charm and said you wanted to take him home,” another henchman said, turning up his nose in disgust.

“Lucky charm?” Tony echoed through grinding teeth. “More like voodoo doll.”

“This is no time for jokes,” Loki snapped. “I want what was taken from me and I know you must want the same. So,” a breath, utilized to completely calm him as his face spread into an impassive, porcelain mask once more, “you get me my money and I shall return your friend to you.”

“Our fri—?”

A henchman who had been silent the entire time slapped the hood of the suburban, prompting a figure with a bag over its head to jump to life in the backseat. Muffled screaming could be heard, as though the figure was gagged.

“Clint!” Bruce shouted, surging in the direction the yells were coming from.

Steve made to swing on one of the henchman, the one who’d spoke the most, but he was thrown to the ground; Tony was kicking at the henchman that triggered the yells, trying with all his might to force his way to the door handle, to Clint.

He hauled his ass off the ground, rolling and landing a solid punch to one of the henchman’s groins, positively delighting when the man went down. “What do you want?” Steve growled. “Our friend did absolutely nothing to you! He’s an innocent in all of this!”

“I told you want I want,” Loki purred, raising a hand. He wore a fat ring on his finger, something heavy and silver, likely an old family treasure. “My money.”

“This is an easy fix,” Bruce said, trying to remain calm and only succeeding in getting more and more frantic. “Really. Tony, where is his money?”

Tony threw his hands up in the air. “Obviously, I don’t _know_.”

“It’s got to be back in our hotel room,” Steve reasoned. “Let us go back to our hotel and we can go get it for you.”  

Loki squinted at them, his mouth curling in amusement at the corners as he took in their sweat-drenched appearances, their pale faces, the flecks of blood and the various wounds standing out on their skin. “Bring the money to the big rock in the Mohabi desert at dawn. If you succeed with that, your friend will be returned to you… only _slightly_ harmed.”

With a dismissive wave, the henchmen and Loki climbed into the suburban, collected as anything, like they’d just had a nice meal and were heading home to watch a bit of mind-numbing television, like there was not a human being behind held captive. “Cash only!” Loki added.

Now without the smothering of the actual henchmen wall to hold them back, Steve, Tony and Bruce all burst forward, slapping their hands on the window next to Clint. “We’re coming for you!” Tony shouted.

“It’s going to be okay, Clint!”

“Everything is will work out!”

The suburban whipped around the corner, disappearing as quickly as it had come.

 

\-----

 

Never had Steve moved faster, nor had he seen Bruce and Tony travel at such a speed. The three of them piled back into the car and before any seatbelts could be snapped into place, Bruce was slamming his foot home against the accelerator and firing them off in the direction of Caesar’s Palace. “I’m going to kill that silver-tongued fucker,” Bruce hissed.

“Not if we let Natasha get to him first,” Tony said. He was bouncing his leg intensely: Steve was surprised he’d not yet got some sort of charley horse.

“I’m not telling my sister that we allowed her fiancé to get kidnapped by a psychopath!”

“Bruce,” Steve said, sharply. He broke out a tone of authority, one he’d not utilized frequently since his days with Fury and the sands of Afghanistan. “Just focus on the road. We won’t do Clint any favors if we wreck and end up in the hospital because it… again.”

Even though Steve’s word of caution had been uttered all of three seconds previous, Bruce straight up ran a stop light, cutting right through the heart of traffic.

Steve felt his backside vibrate and would have ignored it had it only occurred once. On the fourth time, he realized it was a call.

From “BAE 5EVER”.

“I feel funny, Stevie,” came a slurred voice over the other line.

He sat up straighter. “Bucky?”

“I… I think… there was something… in my drink. It tasted _real…_ funny.”

His heart began to pick up its pace behind his ribs. The probability of Steve vomiting was growing higher and higher as horror bloomed in him. A protective piece of him, made strong and raw from being concealed for so long, throbbed hard enough to send his stomach swooping dangerously. On auto-pilot, Steve asked: “Where are you? Are you outside? Indoors?”

“Work,” Bucky murmured, dreamily. “I’m at work.” A pause. “I wasn’t… supposed… to tell you where… I… worked. I can’t-heh-do that. It’d… break your… beautiful little… heart.”

Steve clutched the phone tighter, his wide eyes meeting Bruce’s in the mirror over the dash. Tony was twisted around in his seat, straining an ear to try and detect what was being uttered by Bucky. If Steve forced his hearing to range out a little further than normal, he could detect the bone-rattling thump of bass. Was Bucky at a club? Steve asked him this.

“Noooooo,” Bucky laughed, hiccupping at the end. “I’m at… _work_. It’s… c-called Hydra.”

Steve covered the speaker with his fingertips, lifting the phone from his mouth to hiss at Tony: “Google maps a club called Hydra!”

Tony was already on the move. He sensed the urgency enough not to made some sort of comment on Steve’s use of “up to date technological lingo”.  

“I feel… funny, doll,” Bucky repeated, the sweet-nothing tacked on the end doing nothing to soothe Steve. If anything, the sound of such a tender word made him feel sicker with dread. “I…I gotta… go, now.”

“No!” Steve shouted. Tony sucked in a soft breath of shock from the front seat. “Bucky, no! Don’t—!”

The line went dead.

 

 -----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I know, I know. I KNOW. Updates to come as usual on Sundays. We're far past the half-way mark and are in the home stretch now. I think there will be three or four more chapters, four being the max. I do have an epilogue planned so :) In the meantime, feel free to check out my fic [like-minded beasts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6888178) which is just this little fic where T'Challa is visiting Steve and Bucky in Brooklyn and finds a kitten: adventures ensue. Or, if you're just as angry about the whole Hydra!Cap bullshit, you can stroll over to [Cap Didn't Get Iced for This Shit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6999967). See ya'll soon! To be updated 6/13 or 6/14 since I'll be out of school by then!!!!!! <3


	8. The Beans Get Spilled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Buck,” he said, kneeling, pulling Bucky’s hands to his, curling their fingers together long enough for Steve to squeeze them. His fingertips strayed to Bucky’s jaw, cradling the hinge. He had to know—Bucky had to know—Steve had been so obvious about it and yet, maybe he’d not been clear enough. “I have always wanted you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /adele voice/ "hello...it's me" 
> 
> HERE IS WHERE THINGS GET REAL~~~~~
> 
> WARNING FOR NON-CON DRUG USE!!! IF THAT SORT OF THING MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE, SKIP DOWN TO THE SIXTH SET OF DASHES.

\-----

 

Bruce ran fifty over the speed limit all the way up to Caesar’s, whipping into the valet pick-up lot.

He was also doing very well at calming Steve down. “You got to keep breathing. Steve— _Steve._ You having an asthma attack is not going to help anyone, especially not Bucky.”

Bucky, who sounded child-like and _drugged_. Bucky, who was alone, no doubt, in a seedy place called Hydra. What was he even _doing_ in such an establishment? Where the hell was Rikki? “I don’t get attacks anymore,” Steve hissed, gripping at his midsection as a sharp, squeezing sensation seized his lungs.

“Yeah, well,” Tony said, stiff as a board in his seat. “It sure sounds like you’re about to relapse.”

“I think our best bet is to split up,” Bruce said, narrowing his eyes at Peter, who had appeared with a huge, chipper grin to drive their car off to the valet lot. He made an abortive gesture that had Peter’s expression slipping only slightly. “Tony and I can tear the villa apart—you go make sure your, er, Bucky is okay.”

Steve nodded, making to climb into the front seat before either Tony or Bruce had moved.

Given the day was odd enough as it was, it was Tony who became the voice of reason: “Are you sure he’s good to be driving, Life Partner?” Tony twisted in his seat, eyes round and very brown in the light from the hotel. “You look like shit, Rogers. I’m saying this because I care.”

“Thank _you,_ Tony. I’ll be fine. Both of you—go find the money so we can get Clint back.”

With twin salutes, Bruce and Tony tore off, leaving Steve to clamber into the front seat. He slammed his foot down on the accelerator, leaving burning marks on the otherwise smooth, silver pavement.

During the ride over, Tony had plugged in the location of Hydra into Steve’s phone, giving him a solid, turn by turn route to the club. It looked about as attractive as it sounded: the building was five stories, some post-Modernism glass bullshit with a massive, red skull adorning the front, five tentacles reaching down from it. Just the sight of such a bad omen made Steve’s skin go cold.

He left the Mercedes parked at the curb, pocketing the keys. What was the worst that could happen? It get towed? Someone beat the windows in? Fuck up the upholstery? Yeah, been there, _that’s done_.

Steve shouldered past the bouncer, an ugly man with dark hair and a bit of scruff. He threw him the bird when the guy said going inside would cost him and Steve followed a thin string of men in suits, all sweaty and looking over their shoulders, all headed towards the bone rattling sound of electronic music.

Once he pushed through a pair of smooth glass doors, his senses were _assaulted_.

Neon-hued laser lights flared bright enough to blind, whipping across the room and swirling. He was surprised he didn’t get a seizure or something, honestly. The smell of booze and perspiration and _sex_ wound up his nose, causing his collar to stick to his neck, his palms growing clammy. Men in scantily clad uniforms—just from his post alone, Steve could see a fireman with red short-shorts, a male French maid with a lace thong leaving little to the imagination, a construction worker who was using a shovel to grind on to the viewing pleasure of a gaggle of seedy men—worked poles and people and their own hands. Now, Steve respected people in this sort of work: times get rough and the sex business can help one get off the ground, can help one find a great deal of self-confidence in themselves for making others feel good.

He’d be happier, by far, if he didn’t see some man with his hands down the back of Bucky’s pants, Bucky stumbling like a newborn towards a dark hallway across the room.

Steve was off like a rocket.

He sprinted through the crowds, shouldering by men who leered at him—he got himself groped by a drunken fellow, was whistled at by one of the men on stage—and he even jumped onto one of the raised platforms to make cutting through the masses of people quicker. There were shouts of annoyance at Steve’s interrupting a routine, but he didn’t care. He didn’t give a single shit.

He was so damned tired of giving a shit.

Bursting through the door, he caught sight of a pair of legs being dragged into a room at the end of the hall.

There were, still, more men in this wing: one was going down on a shifty looking guy who had to be in his sixties, another was giving a hickey to a fella who could be no older than Steve, their hips rolling against each others.

“Hey, gorgeous,” one hummed approvingly, reaching out to take the back of Steve’s jacket in his hand. “Wanna join me?”

Steve ripped away. “I’ve got a date already,” he snapped.

“Unfortunate,” the man pouted. “Maybe next time.”

 

\-----

 

“WHERE THE FUCK IS IT?” Tony bellowed.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Bruce barked back. He paused in his search long enough to see all the couch cushions go soaring up into the air—one landed on the piano, prompting a terrible riff to rise from the keys, another disturbed the nest of the chicken who Bruce still had no idea how it had gotten there. “Have you looked in the bathroom?”

“If you mean ‘looked’ you also mean ripped apart the bowels of the sick and the tub and the back of the toilet, then _yes_.”

Bruce rushed to the hall of bedrooms and found all of the doors flung open where, the night before, they’d been tightly shut. “Don’t tell me we went into _every_ bedroom.”

(They’d gone into every bedroom.)

Each one was wrecked in its own way, whether it be a set of burnt slash ripped curtains, a broken vase or six, a shattered window or a missing mattress. Bruce called for Tony to help him search the right side, where there were four rooms, while Bruce took charge of the left, where there were five. “I’m never letting you plan anything again!”

“You’re the one who bought drugs!”

“I told you! I thought it was ecstasy!”

Tony, somehow, managed to pitch a television remote from his room to where Bruce was, digging beneath the bed in his second bedroom, and it bonked Bruce in the shoulder. “You’re the one on a health-food kick! I thought you believed in that whole “high on life” shit!”

Bruce cursed softly beneath his breath, coming up with yet another empty hand.

“Anything?” he prompted instead of responding to what Tony had uttered.

“Notta,” his best friend sighed.

“I was afraid of that.”

They came out of their last room, bonking knees. “Wait,” Tony breathed.

“What? What is it?”

“In case it’s escaped your notice, we’re in a casino,” Tony said slowly. “So why don’t we use it?”

That sent Bruce’s eyebrows rising into a little arch. “What—gamble until we get the money we need?”

“Uh, _yeah_.”

Bruce clapped a hand to his forehead, pushing his hair away from his face and blowing out a loud breath of air. “Alright,” he agreed, weary. He nodded once then twice, then once more because why not? “We’re fucked anyway so let’s just really drive the nail home.”

Tony patted Bruce’s shoulders, grinning in the maniacal way he did. “That’s the spirit, Life Partner.”

A realization slammed into Bruce, too, and it was quite the hefty one. “Tony. In case it’s escaped _your_ notice, you’re a billionaire. “

“This is true,” Tony nodded. “I’m very much aware of my financial status, though.”

Bruce huffed, rolling his eyes hard enough to change the tides. “Tony, why don’t you just take out the money that Loki needs? We can grab some rest and head out once Steve gets back with Bucky.”

“Pepper’s going to notice if I withdraw a huge amount of money,” Tony pointed out. He did not miss the way Tony’s eyes went bigger and browner at the mention of Mrs. Stark: Bruce didn’t think he’d contacted her since they had arrived in Vegas and the distance was starting to do him in.  

That had Bruce’s eyebrows rising, despite himself. “Uh, Tony,” Bruce said with the air of one underlining, bolding, and italicizing something very obvious, “you run the world’s largest weapon’s manufacturing slash intelligence enterprise. If you take out a hundred grand, I don’t think Pepper will notice.”

Tony’s lower lip pursed out, just enough that a small plane could likely land on the end of it. “Wait,” he said, throwing up a sharp hand that nearly hit Bruce. “Wait, wait, wait! I saw a thing!” Tony practically tripped over himself to plow back into the living room, diving onto the wrecked couch with Bruce some ten steps behind.

“What was the thing?” Bruce wondered. “Damn it, Tony—use your words! We’ve talked about this!”

That was the moment a yellow and green paperback came flying at Bruce’s head. He caught it, though, nearly fumbling the well-worn pages in his haste to see just what the hell it was. _The World’s Greatest Blackjack Book,_ the title read, an ace and a jack overlapping in the bottom right corner. “I think I know how we can get the money.”

 

\-----

 

Steve kicked open the door to the room he’d seen Bucky get dragged into, just in time to see a pale-headed man with startlingly blue eyes undo the top button of his neatly ironed slacks.

Bucky was already still and spread-eagled on the bed, his button and fly undone.

“Oh!” the man said, voice a touch dry and pleasant. He straightened up: his teeth were very white when he smiled. “They didn’t tell me there was a two for one special.”

“Get the _fuck_ away from my husband,” Steve snarled, seizing the rat bastard by the collar and head-butting him as hard as he could.

Much to his pleasure, the man crumpled like a paper doll wadded up, unconscious. Steve aimed a kick at the man’s crotch, then another at his gut. He riffled through the man’s jacket, searching for a wallet with some sort of identification and let out a triumphant noise when he found a driver’s license: Alexander Pierce.

Steve knew the name, knew the face now that he really squinted at it—he’d seen this man preaching homophobic shit on Fox News: this was a guy who thought _all_ lives mattered, and not just Black Lives; this was a guy who probably spit on puppies and skinned kittens in his free time.

This guy had drugged Bucky and was going to have his way with him had Steve not stepped in when he did.

“Buck,” he whispered, coming back to himself with a shudder. Bucky was in a costume not unlike those of the men out front, except his chest was exposed and his legs were clad in a pair of tight-fitting black leather pants. His combat boots were discarded at the foot of the bed and his wrists had the workings of faint bruises, all in the shapes of fingers.

He gave Bucky a little shake, not enough to send his head flopping limply, but with enough pressure to make a point. Bucky did not make a sound, did not move an inch. His chest still rose and fell with breath, though, and that was all Steve could hope for.

The next few minutes passed quickly in a stream of him picking Bucky up in a bridal-style carry, calling for the same man that had said, “Maybe next time,” and demanding to know where the hell a back entrance was. The guy, too thin and likely very cold in his little uniform, took one look at Bucky and the seductive façade fell away. His eyes narrowed coldly at Steve.

“Did you do this to him?”

“No!” Steve said. “The fucker that did is knocked out in a room down the hall.”

The fellow paused. His eyes, Steve noticed, were brown, his hair faintly red. “What are you going to do with Bucky?”

“He called me—I’m taking him home,” Steve swallowed, comforted only by the feel of Bucky’s warm breath against his neck. The metal arm did, indeed, go all the way up to his shoulder, wrapping around the meat of his bicep and cutting off just below the collarbone. “He’s my husband.”

“Steve,” the fellow said in realization. “You’re his Steve.”

The words warmed him, thawed his bones enough to get him moving again. “Yeah,” he whispered, “I’m his Steve.”

“Follow me,” the fellow said, nodding like this was acceptable. “The exit is this way.”

(The fellow, who Steve found out was called Peter Quill, made Steve promise that he’d get Bucky the hell out of this place. “He only works here to send money home to his sisters and to take care of that baby. You look like you’ve got your shit together—get him out. I love the guy to death, but I don’t ever want to see him around this shit-hole again. You hear me?”

Steve carefully buckled Bucky into the passenger seat of the Mercedes, smoothing his limp brown hair out of his face. “I hear you. Thank you. Thank you for this, Peter.”

And Steve held out three grand, pressing the wad of cash into Peter’s hand.

“Woah, dude. What’s this for? I helped you find the exit—didn’t give you my Guardian special.”

“I snagged that from Alexander Pierce. I don’t think he’ll miss it, especially if he doesn’t want a lawsuit on his hands.”

Peter shoved the money down the back of his shorts, giving Steve a little salute. “Thanks, man. Get him home safe.”

Steve nodded. “I will. Head back inside—you’ll catch a cold.”

A snort, followed by a long chuckle. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve caught here.”)

 

\-----

 

He and Tony had taken the shortest showers humanly possible, just enough to scrub the dirt and dried blood out of their hair and off their skin, tugging out the neatest suits they could find from their luggage. “I was supposed to take you guys golfing,” Tony sighed, mournful, straightening his tie in the reflective surface of the elevator. The material was all white, his button up a contrasting navy blue, with the tie being a solid, light pink.

“None of us have ever played,” Bruce said, smoothing out the lapels of his own, steel-gray suit. His shoes were shiny enough that he could see his face in them. “Why would you consider taking us _golfing_?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Tony burst, throwing up his hands. “It just seemed like the thing to do!”

They both looked like shit on a shingle, still, even with the fancy monkey suits and the showers, the dabs of cologne that Tony had spritzed them with.

“You think we can do this?” Bruce asked quietly as the elevator doors opened and the many bells and whistles and cheers of victory could be heard from the casino.

Tony clapped him firmly on the shoulder, gripping him like a safety blanket as they crossed the polished floor and strode into the vicinity of the glitz and the glam of the golden cards tables. Chips were being counted and distributed, a few men in dinner suits calling out numbers to the pit boss, who held a telephone to his shoulder and stared at the series of cameras religiously. He was the human embodiment of a search light.

Bruce swallowed, plucking up a shot of something clear from a passing serving tray and downed it for courage.

Counting cards involved a great deal of math.

Math, thank God, was something that Bruce was pretty damn good at.

He’d need to be, if he wanted to see Clint alive.

 

\-----

 

Steve was a little more steady, now that he could clearly see that Bucky was as alright as he could be. He set off in the direction of Caesar’s Palace: he planned to give Tony and Bruce the Mercedes and call a cab to take him and Bucky back to Bucky’s apartment. Steve had no doubt that Bucky was responsible enough to get someone to take care of Rikki while he was at work, but Steve was shaken.

Steve needed to see that Rikki was okay—he needed to see both his Barnes’ together.

He turned onto the main Vegas strip, squinting against the blinking lights.

And that was when Bucky shoved his hand down the front of Steve’s pants.

“Woah!” he yelped, Steve’s fingers jolting to seize Bucky’s wrist. Had he not been as seasoned a driver as he was, Steve would have cut across four lanes of traffic and likely caused a huge, news worthy accident. But he could see the fountains of the Bellagio and knew Caesar’s was just a little further down the road. “Buck—what the—?”

“Steve,” Bucky hummed, pushing himself up so he was leaning heavily into Steve’s chest. “Baby doll.”

He couldn’t help the shudder that rolled down his back at the pet name. “Bucky, are you alright?”

“ _Waaaaaaay_ better now that you’re here,” he murmured, the flat of his hand stroking from Steve’s jaw, down his neck, over his chest, and landing on his stomach. “So fucking pretty, I swear to god.” Bucky tipped back his face, pressing open-mouthed kisses to Steve’s skin.

“Bucky, stop,” Steve said. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You got drugged.”

Bucky went still. Steve did not have to look away from the road to know that Bucky just blinked owlishly. “I got _drugged_?”

“Yes,” Steve breathed, accelerating at the sight of the turn for the valet entrance. “Yes, you got drugged. But you called me and I came and got you.” He curled an arm around Bucky’s shoulders to ensure that he did not fly into the passenger window with the intensity of which Steve took the turn, running them up on the curb a bit.

Steve threw the Mercedes into park at the soonest possible moment. He undid his seatbelt and carefully detached himself from Bucky, moving around so he could do the same for his husband.

In the few seconds that Steve had been out of the car, Bucky seemed to have come to a heart-breaking conclusion:

“You don’t want me,” Bucky whispered miserably the instant Steve pulled open his door, and though his eyes were terribly unfocused, they retained a raw clarity to them, making the normal blue-gray even brighter. He felt as though the breath had been punched right out of him, the asthma monster of his childhood returning at long last to smother the air from him. A few more slow blinks and the shine to Bucky’s gaze would pool down his cheek, over his chin, dapple at his chest.

“Buck,” he said, kneeling, pulling Bucky’s hands to his, curling their fingers together long enough for Steve to squeeze them. His fingertips strayed to Bucky’s jaw, cradling the hinge. He had to know—Bucky _had_ to know—Steve had been so obvious about it and yet, maybe he’d not been clear enough. “I have _always_ wanted you.”

“You’re lying,” Bucky whispered, shaking his head erratically enough to send his carefully smoothed back hair flying into his face. He pushed Steve’s hand away with the strength of an ant. “You’re _lying_ to me.”

Steve made sure his movements were carefully choreographed, made sure that Bucky saw the path his hands were taking as they reached out and bracketed his face. “I would never lie to you.” Steve swallowed and though it was greatly unfair, given Bucky was under the influence and Steve was sober as a graveyard, he said: “You’re my best guy, Bucky. My only sweetheart.”

That’s how it had always been, from their bruise-tinged beginning in that alley defending the little garbage pup from a bunch of bullies. Of course there had been near chances, a few women and a man or two he’d allowed himself to love, like Sharon, for instance, but none of them ever outshone Bucky. Just looking at him, at the way he curled into himself made Steve’s heart beat a little quicker, the lining of his stomach thrummed with the beat of those butterflies wings that have haunted poetry verses for as long as humans have been feeling. He could stand nude in the middle of the Arctic Circle in the dead of winter and as long as Bucky was there, he’d never feel the cold. Steve wanted to kiss him so he’d _know_ —his face, his neck, his collarbones, down his belly, his arms (both arms), those glorious thighs, calves, every one of his fingers and toes, and the more intimate places of him, the ones Steve had never seen—but he wouldn’t.

Not tonight. Not while Bucky couldn’t give him a proper _yes_.

“I’m going to take you home,” he whispered, brushing a thumb over Bucky’s cheek. “I’m going to stay with you.”

Bucky’s throat worked hard as he swallowed. “Til’ the end of the line?”

Steve’s breath caught somewhere between his lungs and his lips. He felt tears of his own prickling at the corners of his eyes. “Yeah, sweetheart.” He pushed Bucky’s hair out of his face, tucking it gently behind his ears. “Til’ the end of the line.”

 

\-----

 

“Steve just texted me,” Tony whispered. “He’s got a cab and he’s taking Bucky Bear home. Anastasia is out front.”

“Good,” Bruce nodded. These were the first words he’d uttered in over an hour. The large clock across the room declared it was after four, which meant they had about twenty minutes before they needed to turn tail and get the hell out of town.

He had about ninety-four thousand dollars in chips stacked around him and needed to win this hand to get the rest.

“I think the pit boss is watching you,” Tony mumbled slyly, making it look as though he were scratching his ear.

Bruce withheld a curse. “Distract him, then.”

The dealer flicked out cards for the group of folk that had decided to join Bruce’s game. He’d felt rather than saw several get up and throw in their hands, frowning and muttering to themselves about the “establishment being rigged” and the like. He kept his head down, though, to disguise the sight of his lips barely moving as he worked through the proper calculations.

“He’s getting up,” Tony said, tapping his foot anxiously against Bruce’s chair.

Bruce had a ten.

The man next to him had a king.

He took a breath, tapping his fingers against the table to let the dealer know he was still in. “Then hurry _up_ ,” Bruce hissed.

Tony made a noise of surprise then said: “Jane! Jane!” He put on a drunken hobble, pushing through folk and grinning at the receptionist who’d first checked them in. “Jane, darling—how the hell are you?” From the corner of his eye, Bruce spotted Tony pluck up an entire bottle of Crown Royal from a passing server, tugging out the cork with his teeth.

The pit boss was carefully slipping between the bodies gathered around the multitude of tables. Bruce had a plastic bag tucked in his suit pocket, waiting.

The dealer put down a one, a three and a queen on the trio of card piles near his hand, slapping another king down on the man beside him.

Bruce saw Tony guide Jane to their table just as the pit boss was in vicinity.

Bruce was dealt an ace—a perfect twenty one, as he predicted.

The hand was called. Ten thousand dollars in chips were ushered Bruce’s way.

This was the moment that Tony gestured enthusiastically and tossed half the expensive liquor into the face of the pit boss, allowing Bruce to bag the chips and make a mad dash for the cashing station.

 

\-----

 

“I almost shit myself,” Tony confessed. “Like, Bruce. _Bruce,_ buddy!” Tony shook his arm, grinning in the new, orange light of the dawn. “You won one hundred and nine thousand dollars! Loki said we only needed one hundred grand! Holy shit balls, Batman! You fucking did it! HA!”

“I did, didn’t I?” Bruce breathed. Out here in the dessert, there was nothing but half-dead plant life and dust. The dirt was very orange and the mountains in the distance cut purple shapes against the pale pink sky.

Somehow, Tony found “TNT” playing on an old classic rock station, blaring the song the entire way to the meet-up point. The montage was full of air drums and a guitar solo Tony was happy to mimic the beat to.

They drove until they were thirty miles away from the city, where there was no signs of existence other than the stray lizard that looked at them funny as they rolled, wearily past, or a huge snake that decided to coil around the belly of a cactus. Bruce navigated them around a corner and he caught sight of that same black suburban gleaming threateningly in the sun.

“Oh, shit,” Tony said, taking the words right out of Bruce’s mouth.

“Let’s just get this over with, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tony muttered. He flicked his eyes from the waiting vehicle to Bruce then back again, calculating. “You sure we can’t call, the Red Terror? I think she could beat Loki’s ass for us and then we could keep the money and get Clint back and then go home happy.”

“My sister is never finding out any of this,” Bruce said in a tone that left no room for argument. “As far as she knows, we were perfect angels this entire weekend and we did not leave the villa except to get dinner. We did not gamble; we did not accidentally do drugs; we did not steal from a scary man with an eye-patch…”

Bruce rolled to a stop, wincing when Anastasia’s breaks squealed. Ivan was going to kick his ass for that, too. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said, exasperatedly. “You ask me like I just casually go around having Mexican stand-offs with crazy psychopaths who kidnap my best friends every weekend.” Tony tipped his head in consideration. “And I’ll admit I did some crazy shit in college, but nothing like _this_.”

Bruce, thinking of nothing better to do, flicked the headlights on and off.

The doors to the suburban flung open.

“Huh,” he said. “I guess that was the signal.”

Tony had to shimmy out of the passenger side window, given that the hit Anastasia took the night before rendered the passenger door useless, leaving Bruce to climb to his feet normally, exchanging a nod with Tony as the man’s feet made contact with the ground and he held the money bag to his chest.

Loki had changed into something equally green and equally expensive, only this time, he had a pair of sleek Ray-Bans perched on his nose as to keep from being blinded by the sun. He had kept his staff as part of his get-up, though, and the serpent wrapped around the onyx length had seemed to stare into Bruce’s soul.

“Alright, Lulu of Assbutt—,” Tony said, waving the bag in the air. “We’ve got your money: one hundred grand, all in cash.”

“It is _Loki_ of Asgard!” Loki snapped. “And you will throw the money over before you think of seeing your friend.”

“Uh,” Bruce drawled. “No. I mean—good morning? Lovely day to be threatened, isn’t it?” And he gave a nervous string of laughs, flicking his eyes to Tony then back to Loki and the pair of henchmen that had gotten out of the car to flank him. “Okay! Rambling… Basically, we worked very hard to get this money and we’d like to see that Clint is alright before we go and give it to you… if that’s… alright.”

Loki seemed to study them, a scientist scrutinizing a wriggling little bacteria beneath a microscope. Bruce just hoped that he did not toss out their little peetree dish or stamp them violently beneath the designer leather boots he wore.

“Bring out their friend.”

One of the henchmen broke off, walking leisurely to the back of the suburban where he jerked open the door and pulled out a struggling man. Clint’s head was still covered with a sack, his hands tied behind him so they settled at the small of his back. He held himself with hunched shoulders.

“Oh thank god,” Bruce whispered.

“Can you at least take the bag off his head?” Tony asked. “He’s a friggen person!”

“You’ve seen that he’s alright,” Loki said, his voice perfectly silky. “Now, give me the money or I will have my men shoot him and the both of you, too.” He paused his sharp eyes seeming to take note of the lack of another person. “I’ll find the other one—the tall blond. I’ll have him shot, also.”

Bruce grit his teeth. “Fine,” he growled. “Here’s your money.” Pitching the bag across the dusty earth between them, he couldn’t help but delight in the little squeak of surprise that left Loki at nearly being nailed in the face by a bag containing over a hundred grand.

One of the henchmen caught the bag, though, and pawed through it for well over a minute. Pale mouth moving, counting and recounting the bills that Bruce had painstakingly gambled for—not counting the nice chunk of cash Tony had wedged beneath the driver’s seat. “It’s all there, boss,” the man finally said, handing off the bag to Loki.

“Let him go, then,” Loki said, waving the staff as he spoke. _God, this pretentious bastard must think he’s Moses or something,_ Bruce thought. If he could manage it, Bruce would have totally knocked all the henchmen away, climbing into the driver’s seat of the suburban and would have ran Loki over until nothing but a greasy stain remained in the midst of the desert.

The henchmen hauled Clint over to them, gripping the back of his coat.

“Take it easy!” Bruce said, noting the way Clint nearly stumbled to his knees.

With a flourish, the burlap bag was ripped off of Clint’s head.

It was not Clint.

The man was much taller than Clint and had arms as big as Bruce’s head. He was tan and golden haired, his locks falling past his shoulder with huge blue eyes sparkling over his lightly flushed cheeks. Bruce blinked at Loki, at the large man in their midst, at Tony, who looked on the verge of popping a vein in his forehead.

“Is this some sort of _joke_?”

“No,” Loki said. “This is your friend, no?”

“No, this is not our friend!” Tony barked. “Who even is this guy?”

The henchman ripped the tape off of the man’s mouth. He did not even wince when the duck tape tore through the fine hair of his beard. “Friend Bruce!” the man boomed, his voice slightly accented. “It is I! Thor!”

Bruce blinked. “Oh no.”

Tony whipped his way, jabbing a hard finger into Bruce’s shoulder. “Do you know him?”

He did not stamp down on the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose exasperatedly between his thumb and forefinger, his glasses drifting up to perch in his oil hair. “This is the guy who sold me the bad drugs.”

“Bad drugs?” Thor prompted in that loud voice. “My friend, you said you wished for a good time! I simply gave you what I believed would offer you all just that for your shield brother’s party of bachelors!”

“Who gives a shit?” Tony bellowed, twisting to spit viciously at Loki: “Give us the hundred grand back and take him with you. We want Clint back!”

Loki laughed, a soft and cold sound. “This is not my problem. Come—,” he waved a hand at the henchmen, flicking his long fingers in the direction of the car.

Thor turned, raising the volume of his voice to be heard through the thick, tinted windows: “Brother—”

“ _Brother_?” Tony and Bruce both wondered sharply.

Thor’s rather impressive shoulders jumped in a shrug. He looked sheepish as hell. “He’s adopted.”

With an elaborate donut, Loki and his men drove away, sending up great clouds of dust.

The day, amazingly enough, went from bad to worse.

 

\-----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, ya'll: I'm going on vacation from June 20th to... the 27th/28th??? So I'll try and post the next chapter by Saturday since I"ve got to pack and such :) 
> 
> ALSO!!! I swear the next chapter is pretty much COMPLETELY Steve/Bucky centric! <3
> 
> Hope ya'll enjoy! Are any of you guys doing anything fun this summer????


	9. Laughter Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know, I realized I was in love with you when I was twelve. It wasn’t anything to shift the stars—I think you had been eating pizza and you wanted to make Becca laugh so you smeared sauce all over the lower half of your face. I laughed, too, and I just felt something burst in me. I didn’t know what it was for the longest time, only that it didn’t hurt and I didn’t want to lose it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING FOR ALL THE FLUFF~~~~~  
> We're in the final stretch now, kids!!!!
> 
> Update: 7/30/16: I swear I'm working on the next chapter, but life, as it so often does, has invaded my writing time. I've been doing college visits and prepping for my final year of high school and I just??? Am sort of kinda really freaking out all the time??? For now, feel free to check out my most recent fic, [Always and Always](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7354021). It's a really, really sweet recovery fic post-CW where Bucky grows flowers, learns the Victorian flower language and gets better through a little TLC, with Steve at his side, of course :) Thanks! Enjoy reading!!! <3

 

\-----

 

Bucky did not wake up again until after one.

By this point, Steve had gotten seventeen calls from Bruce and Tony and had gotten a friend request from some Scandinavian man called Thor Odinson on Facebook, who was, apparently, now helping them on their “quest to locate their fallen shield brother”.

“Where the hell did you dig up some guy named _Thor_?” he wondered, watching the steady rise-fall of Bucky’s chest. One of the neighbors, a nice, curly haired girl called America, had dropped Rikki off at seven. “Isn’t that the name of a Norse god?”

“He was the shit drug dealer,” Tony informed him. A pause. “No offense, buddy. You should stick with modeling or cheese whittling instead. Whatever it is they do in Asgard.”

“Asgard?” Steve repeated blankly. “What the hell is an Asgard?”

“I don’t know—he said something about a rainbow bridge and I kind of tuned it out,” Tony huffed. “How’s your bae?”

Steve gently bounced Rikki on his hip, pacing from one end of the front room to the other. He brushed a gentle kiss over her wispy, dark hair, his heart nearly exploding when she snuggled into his chest, content. “He’s still sleeping off the drugs, but otherwise, he’s alright. I’ve got Rikki with me, so I’m a little less lonely.”

“My god,” Tony murmured, uncharacteristically soft. Steve felt, in that moment, as though he were conversing with a jar of marshmallow fluff. “You’re stepping up as a father. I’m so damn proud, Rogers. So damn proud.You going to convert your studio into a nursery?”

(And Steve… He wished Tony didn’t have such a big mouth on him because once things of that sort were put out into the air, Steve couldn’t simply _un-hear_ them. Once Steve got off the phone with Tony, the silence of the apartment caused scenarios to bloom in Steve’s mind: Rikki sleeping in a room carefully painted with little zoo animals, waking up to Bucky’s face each morning before he had to head off to Brooklyn Heights Elementary, little dinners with both the Barnes’, humming Rikki a lullaby before she finally laid down for the night, making a game out of changing her diaper, blowing raspberries on her belly just to get her to smile, just to make her giggle.)

To compensate for the things he did not know whether he could have or not, Steve bounced the little giggle box on his hip, allowing her to teethe on the end of his thumb while he waited for her bottle to warm up in the microwave.

He had her burped and sated when Bucky finally blinked his eyes open, brows scrunching adorably as he adjusted to the bright lights of midday. He suddenly snapped up, as though the last few sober moments of the night before were swarming back to him. Steve carefully settled Rikki in her crib, moving so he sat on the edge of Bucky’s mattress.

“Easy,” he soothed, “Easy, Buck. It’s okay.”

“Steve,” Bucky whispered.

“I’m here.”

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky repeated, surging in to wrap his arms tight around Steve’s shoulders. “W…What happened?”

He condensed the story down to a few lines: “You were drugged last night and you called me from Hydra. I came as soon as I could and I knocked out the shifty bastard who tried to have his way with you while you were under the influence and I took you home. A sweet girl came by with Rikki this morning and I’ve been waiting for you to wake up since then.” The words left him in a flood: he didn’t think he drew more than one breath.

“Wait,” Bucky said. “You _knocked_ out Alexander Pierce?”

“…yes?”

A laugh bubbled up and out of Bucky’s mouth, sweet and bitter all at once. “ _Fuck_ , Steve.”

“I also, er, stole about three grand from his wallet and gave it to your friend? Peter Quill?”

Bucky hummed, still not looking as calmed as Steve would like for him to be. “Starlord. I bet he loved that.” As though the earlier topic had just caught up with him, his husband went entirely still, going three shades paler. “You know about Hydra.”

Steve nodded.

“You know about my _job_.”

“Buck, it doesn’t change anything.”

He got a shove for his words, flinching when Bucky ripped away from him and stumbled to his feet, all the blood rushing to Bucky’s head enough to make him sharply sway into the near-bare wall. “No,” Bucky jabbed a finger at him. “That’s where you’re wrong, Steve. I… I’m not _clean_. I didn’t want you to know—I didn’t think I’d ever have to tell you—”

“Buck—”

“—supposed to get the marriage annulled! We were supposed to get the shit sorted out and then I was supposed to act like I didn’t sell my ass to make a living! You were supposed to ride off into the sunset with your band of idiots and I wasn’t supposed to see you for, like, another ten years, during which I’d get my shit together and find you again! You weren’t supposed to _know_!”

Steve feltlike he’d been sucker punched. He’d been halfway to his feet, but at the first piece of Bucky’s rant, he sank back onto his haunches and stared blankly at the mattress, at Bucky’s bare feet. He swallowed past the great lump in his throat. These were likely the last moments he’d get to spend in Bucky’s presence.

When he managed to get his vocal chords working, he could not miss how strained he sounded:

“You know, I realized I was in love with you when I was twelve. It wasn’t anything to shift the stars—I think you had been eating pizza and you wanted to make Becca laugh so you smeared sauce all over the lower half of your face. I laughed, too, and I just felt something _burst_ in me. I didn’t know what it was for the longest time, only that it didn’t hurt and I didn’t want to lose it.

“I was going to tell you, that summer you left. I mean, I would have told you that summer had you _not_ left. I didn’t want that to be one of the last conversations we had—where I say “I love you” and you reel back like I’d hit you. God, Buck. Every time you called, I almost said it—I must have wrote you a thousand letters all saying the same thing. I never mailed them. I wasn’t brave enough to.”

He was speaking faster, now. Steve almost didn’t hear the mattress dip as Bucky sank down on it. He, resolutely, did not lift his head. The plain gray sheets made a good, unblinking thing to address. “And now we somehow ended up married. I don’t remember how it happened and I hate that—god _damn_ Buck, I hate that—but if you ask me, and you haven’t, you jerk, I don’t want the marriage annulled. I don’t care that you do what you do. What matters to me is that you’ve got to deal with shady ass fuckers like Pierce who try and take advantage of you when you’re just trying to make money to send home to Becca, to make enough coin to take care of that beautiful baby girl behind me.

“And damn it, Buck,” Steve’s voice finally cracked, like someone had slammed a knife right through his gut and tugged _up_. “I was so scared when you called me. I thought… Hell, I don’t know what I thought. I just know I launched into a panic mode I’ve never reach before and I never want to reach again. For a solid ten minutes, the entire time I was driving over to get you, I thought I was really, truly going to lose you. For good.

“But,” he couldn’t hold the volume of his voice any louder than a whisper. The fight was trickling out of him by the second: Bucky had always held that power over him. “If you want me to come back next weekend and go down to whatever equates to city hall around here and have our marriage annulled, I’ll do it.”

Steve pressed his lips together, nodding. He felt satisfied with those words put into the air between them. If Bucky just so happened to not want to have anything to do with Steve afterward, then so be it. The ball was in his court, now: there was nothing else Steve could do.

(Except grovel. Honestly, at this point, Steve was most certainly _not_ against groveling.)

A gentle hand cradled his cheek, a fine tremor working through it. “You said you loved me,” Bucky whispered.

He closed his eyes. “I did.” Steve licked his sandpaper-dry lips. “I _do_. I always have. Always will.”

“Say it again?” Bucky asked, weakly.

Steve’s breath stuttered from between his teeth. “I love you.”

The bed dipped again, except the movement was much closer, this time. Another hand, the metal one judging by the coolness of it, curled to the side of Steve’s neck, over his hammering pulse. He felt Bucky’s breath ghost over his mouth and shuddered in the best possible way. “Again?”

He opened his eyes, his heart clenching at the sight of Bucky no less than four inches away and yet still so far. Steve gingerly reached out for him, curling an arm around Bucky’s waist and using his other hand to stroll up Bucky’s neck to tangle in his hair. Bucky’s eyes were big and oh so blue and they were trained right on him. “James Buchannan Barnes,” Steve murmured, “I am so in love with you, words cannot embody it.”

Bucky’s mouth slotted to his in the sort of kiss that belonged in a trashy Harlequin paperback. _Fifty Shades_ had nothing on the heat of their mouths, the tangle of their tongues, the clash of teeth and the glorious unsteadiness to their knees as they both struggled to remain relatively upright.

It wasn’t surprising that Steve ended up flat on his back with Bucky straddling his hips, a thigh on either side. Bucky’s breath was awful and Steve knew he could be no better, but damn if it wasn’t the greatest thing he’d ever had the luxury of tasting. “Buck,” he mumbled after a minute, where he could feel Bucky’s hot length along his thigh, straining against the tight material of those leather pants, Steve not much better behind the zipper of his khakis.

“Don’t worry, Stevie,” Bucky murmured, doing something downright _sinful_ with his tongue that made Steve’s toes _curl_ , a full-body shudder rolling down his back. “I’m not going to deflower you in front of my baby.”

He huffed. “Really?” Steve applied heated, open-mouthed kisses down the column of Bucky’s neck, where the smell of sweat and man was strongest, dragging the edges of his teeth over Bucky’s jugular. His husband made a little gasping noise and Steve did not bother stamping down on a smug grin, something he was sure to press into Bucky’s skin. “ _Deflower_?”

“Shaddup,” Bucky muttered, persistent fingertips sliding into Steve’s hair, “and get that fine ass of yours back up here.”

 

\-----

 

They did no more than neck, learning the lines of each other as if the moment they stopped, they would have to ink the precise trails on mapping paper. There was a thick knotting of scar-tissue wrapped around Bucky’s left shoulder, around the socket where the metal arm fused to his body, that was particularly sensitive.

Steve, of course, took a great deal of pleasure in sucking hickeys into the soft, pale pink skin.

The buttons of his shirt were undone and his white undershirt, stained and smelly from the previous day’s exertion, was discarded. The “moob” tattoos, as Tony would have called them, were peeling around the edges—all it would take was a good shower to get rid of them.

Bucky, at the sight of the flaking shields, started to shake so hard with laughter, Steve was genuinely worried he’d bust a vein in his forehead.

(He tipped in and kissed the noises of amusement right out of Bucky’s mouth.

He could do that now.)

 

\-----

 

Rikki began to cry, the sort of wailing that made the back of Steve’s neck prickle if he heard such wails come from other infants in public. He had put her in a sunshine-yellow onesie and changed her before Bucky woke up, but that didn’t mean much. “I’ve got her,” he said, waving Bucky down when he tried to crawl over Steve and climb to his feet. “Buck, seriously. You remember all the times you and I babysat Alice and Grace for your Ma, right? I can handle this little angel.”

He scooped her up, rising Rikki to his nose-level so he could get a quick smell from her diaper to gauge whether or not she needed another change.

Thankfully, she didn’t have any noticeable odor. “I bet she’s hungry, then,” Steve said, carefully laying her against his shoulder so he could cradle her in one arm, gently patting her back with the flat of his hand as he moved into the kitchen to prepare a bottle.

He hummed an Irish lullaby his mother had sang to him when he was a babe no bigger than Rikki, sure to remain light on his feet as to not jostle her. She sucked at the rubber nipple, humming around it the entire span of her meal.

(His heart swelled further when she kind of batted the bottle away and said: “Steeb-ah!” with a sleepy gusto.)

There wasn’t much solid food for folk that didn’t need mostly pureed substance, but Steve brought Bucky a glass of fruit juice and a plate of toast just so he’d have something on his stomach. 

He wasn’t feeling all that hungry, himself, running on fumes of the last couple of hours. With a glance at his phone, Steve found that Bruce and Tony were stopping their search until sunset because neither one of them had gotten any sleep since the actual night of the bachelor party. _None of us are fit to be behind the wheel of a car right now, but we’re sending Thor out to retrace our steps in-case we’re missing something,_ Bruce admitted and though it was a digital string of words with no emoticons at all, Steve could sense his bone-deep reluctance to stop the search for even a second.

 _We will find him,_ Steve replied. _Get some rest._

He texted Tony the same.

The wedding was in less than twenty-four hours and the groom was still missing. Natasha had been steadily blowing up his inbox, Pepper sending him the odd message with Betty doing the same. Betty’s, at least, had little ‘xo’s after them.

There had not been a word from Sharon. He planned to take her aside after the wedding, if things didn’t go to shit beforehand—if there was even a _wedding_ —and state the obvious: neither of them had been happy with the relationship they’d been entertaining and a breakup had been on the horizon for a while. He would tell her, given their group of friends was so tight-knit, that he hoped they could still remain on speaking terms, maybe even go out for drinks like they used to, pre-dating years.

Rikki burped against his shoulder, blinking with heavy eyelids as he lowered her down into her crib. Her little cheeks were flushed, but not dangerously so, with her soft hair starting to come in around her ears and neck and the toe of her head in delicate tufts. She shifted so she was laying on her belly, little feet kicking out to find the prime position of comfort.

“She’s beautiful, Buck,” Steve murmured, sinking back down on the mattress. The heat radiating off of Bucky seeped into the pieces of him he hadn’t known were cold.  

His husband made a small noise, the type of which Steve could not identify. When Steve flicked his eyes to Bucky, his expression was carefully blank and a touch guarded.

This, in turn, put Steve on his guard, too. Had he done something wrong…?

“You’ve only known her for, what, two and a half days?” Bucky said, completely devoid of heat. And if Steve sifted through his river of memories, he knew this tone—it was the one Bucky utilized if he wanted to make a point then drive the same point home. “You’ve not seen anything, Steve. You’ve not been there when she cries from seven to seven; when she’s sick and I have no idea what’s wrong…” The line of his throat bobbed as he swallowed thickly. Bucky’s eyes flicked to him, pale irises framed by a fan of dark lashes, his hair thoroughly disheveled.

 _God, I’m so lucky_ , Steve thought.  

He didn’t realize both his and Bucky’s eyes had moved and locked onto Rikki’s crib, where the little lady of the moment was sucking her thumb between her rapidly slackening mouth. As he was closest, Steve leaned forward the three feet it took to reach the bars, maneuvering a hand through and quirking a finger though hers.

She released her thumb with a sleepy, damp noise.

“I may not have been there,” Steve said quietly, watching the way her little chest rose and fell with breath—there were no irregularities with her heart, nothing to make her wheeze or choke on air: she was perfect. “But now that I’m here, there’s nowhere else I wanna be. I wanna see it all: the good and the bad and the in-between.”

The defenses Bucky had so abruptly erected fell away, as though this was exactly what he needed to hear. “I want you to be there,” Bucky said just as quiet. “God, you’ve planted this picture in my head and I can’t shake it.”

Steve nestled back into the solitary pillow, opening his arms for Bucky to curl into him, their legs tangling into a warm mass. “Tell me about it?”

Bucky’s cool nose burrowed in the hollow of Steve’s throat. Those plush lips brushed gently along Steve’s neck, just once. “Well, we’re in a nice place—bigger than two rooms, that’s for sure—and it’s sunny. It’s always fucking sunny, Steve. And we’ve got a dog.”

He struck up a little path where his fingers gently trekked, brushing from the crown of Bucky’s head to the top knob of his spine. “What breed?”

“Golden retriever,” Bucky told him, a touch conspiratorial. “Really sincere and goofy-looking. We’d call her something sweet like, gah, I don’t know, Liberty? Yeah. Liberty. And you’d make chocolate chip pancakes on Sundays. We’d go for walks and stuff, take the dog and Rikki with us and then we’d stop at a park and let her run around with other kids. We’d have a trip at a mall, let her model in all sort of cute things and take enough pictures to kill a gigabyte of storage on our phones.”

Bucky’s voice was starting to slur around the edges. He was warm and still, tucked contentedly into Steve’s side.

“And we’d cry one her first day of kindergarten,” Bucky continued, half-asleep. “We’d both pretend to be doing otherwise, but…,” he did little shrugging motion. “God. She’ll probably punch someone on the first day because one of the boys tried to tug her hair.”

“Good,” Steve said, still keeping up with his gentle stroking of Bucky’s hair. When they woke again, they’d need to grab a shower and get proper food. Brush their teeth, change Rikki. Contact Bruce and Tony to see if the massive golden man had any more luck than they did.

For now, though, the rest of the world could wait.

 

\-----

 

**PRESENTLY**

 

The night’s peace did not last.  

Steve never should have believed it would, not with Tony in the same city, not after he’d been given over twenty hours to spend with Bucky. He wasn’t exactly surprised when Tony came bursting in through the doors of Bucky’s apartment, not even bothering to shield his eyes.

(Well, Bruce did: Tony held no such reservations.)

“Alright Mr. and Mr. Rogers: we’ve let the pair of you aggressively spoon for almost twenty-four hours. Natasha is starting to murder my inbox and Bruce’s, too. And while I love seeing you two happy—yes, _Rogers_ , you’re my friend so your happiness is my happiness believe it or not—I have no doubt if we don’t start answering calls, our resident red head will hotwire one of my private jets and be down here by breakfast.”

Honestly, Steve couldn’t disagree with that.

The dawn was starting to break like a pastel egg over the low-laying buildings surrounding them, splattering a yolk of marigold and pink and violet over the world. “Alright,” Bruce said, looking a touch ill. “We’ve got to go and pick up Thor.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Where did he go?”

“Well,” Bruce said, watching as Bucky gave Rikki a bath in the kitchen sink. It was a rather difficult sight to ignore, with the door propped open and Bucky up to his elbows in baby shampoo and Rikki giggling and splish-splashing around in the sweet-smelling suds. Steve shook himself: he’d had his night with Bucky—it was time to focus on finding Clint. “He got Loki to meet with him somewhere in the dessert—”

“Because someone as pretentious as Loki cannot _simply_ meet in, say, a well air-conditioned bar or, I don’t know, in a church,” Tony muttered. He had taken up a post on Bucky’s mattress again, smirking at _how warm the bed was_ when he’d flopped down _._

“—and they went on a drive. Shockingly enough, Loki kicked him out the car between point A and point B and now he’s walking along the highway ten miles away from the city.” Bruce swallowed and Steve could not help but note how _gray_ he looked around the edges. He wondered, vaguely, when the last time Bruce had eaten. “He’s helped out a lot. We owe him a ride back to the city.”

Steve nodded his agreement. “Alright,” he nodded, glancing to Bucky then away. “Give me a minute and I’ll meet you all at the car.”

“Always a pleasure, Mrs. Rogers,” Tony called, wriggling his fingers at Bucky as Bucky flipped him off with a soapy digit of his own.

“You, too, Stark. Keep him on a tight leash, Bruce,” Bucky said, nodding at the older man. “Like, a child’s back pack leash or one of the retractable ones people use to torture small dogs and shit with.”

Bruce cracked a weak grin. “I’m on it,” he said, swaying slightly. “See you soon, Bucky.”

And with that, the pair of science loving men slid out of the space and could be heard bickering with each other down the outdoor hallway, gently padding down the steps in the direction of the parking lot.

Steve moved so he was standing beside Bucky, an arm slid around his middle. Rikki beamed up at him the moment he was in her line of sight, putting on a show as she blew spit bubbles that sent Bucky scowling playfully. “That is no way for a lady to behave, little miss,” he said, dabbing at her lower lip with a plush towel.

Rikki blew an even grander bubble.

“She’s got your spite, Buck,” Steve deadpanned.

He got an elbow to the ribs for his troubles. It took a moment, but Bucky went still, his hands the only part of him still moving, gently rinsing the suds off of Rikki with a steadiness that showed just how often he completed the process. “You’re leaving.”

“Not yet,” Steve said, sneaking the hand he had on Bucky’s hip up to the side of his face. He was still warm from the many hours they spent laying side-by-side beneath the cotton sheets. “We’ve still got to find Clint and then get to the wedding…” he felt his stomach drop a few inches. “Or we’ve got to break it to Natasha that because of our mistake there won’t be a wedding.”

“You’ll get him back,” Bucky said firmly. “A stubborn streak like yours—you’ll find him.” He blew out a breath that seemed to shake at the very core. “And then you’ll leave.”

“Not without you,” Steve declared, applying a touch of pressure to Bucky’s cheek so he’d look at him. Bucky had closed himself off again, going distant enough for Steve’s heart to physically pang with it. “Hey,” he gave Bucky a little shake. “End of the line, remember?”

The clouds blocking Bucky’s light from him parted and then were gone. Bucky deflated partially into Steve’s side. He sank his damp hands into Steve’s back, gripping him close as though this was a long awaited greeting rather than a tear-inducing goodbye.

“Ain’t nothing going to take you from me again,” Bucky whispered, pulling back just enough to cover Steve's mouth with his. There was a softness about the way their lips moved together, made sharper when Bucky sank his teeth into Steve’s lower lip in a way they learned made Steve _shudder._

Bucky sighed, eyes closing briefly. “Shoot me a text when you’re on your way back to Caesar’s okay?”

Steve nodded, his entire body practically shaking with it. “I will,” he swore. “I promise.” He forced himself to remove his hands from Bucky’s body, tipping in to snag a last, lingering kiss before he pecked Rikki atop her wet head and nodded at Bucky a final time. “Love you, Buck.”

Blue eyes absolutely melted and Steve beamed at the sight, an action that prompted a light blush spilling into the rounds of Bucky’s cheeks. “Get out of here, Steve, before Stark sends up smoke flares.” Steve felt his gaze on his back, following him the short walk from the kitchen to the front door. His last farewell was soft, but Steve caught it all the same: “And I love you, too, you raging idiot.”

 

\-----

 

Thor was wedged in the back beside Steve. The pair of men, both golden haired and blue eyed and absolutely fucking _stacked_ looked as though they could be brothers and Thor chatted amiably with Steve, the only one in the car he’d not met before.

“—my Lady Jane works at the Palace of Caesar, but I am trying to convince her to come across the sea with me to the great kingdom of my father—”

“Wait,” Tony said, as he did not dare touch on the whole bit about Thor apparently being next in line to have a _kingdom_ with a mile-long pole. “Lady Jane? Is she kinda small? Brown hair, bigger, browner eyes?”

The whole world seemed to grow brighter with the size of Thor’s besotted grin. It was even worse than seeing Rogers look at Barnes and that was an accomplishment in and of itself. “You have met her, then!”

“We have,” Steve confirmed, grappling to add another bead to the conversation. “She was real sweet. You’re a lucky man to have someone like her as your, erm, lady.”

“Indeed,” Thor boomed, sitting back a bit in his seat. He was still beaming.

It did nothing to help the sudden twist Bruce gave the steering wheel, veering them off the road and off to the gravelly shoulder lining the asphalt. There was a grand screech of tires, Bruce stamping on the break and expecting Tony to throw the Mercedes in park as Bruce threw open the door.

Tony winced when Bruce was violently sick. Suddenly, the lack of color in his cheeks made a great deal of sense.

“Is he hung over?” Steve asked quietly. He had thrown off his seatbelt and was craning his neck over the seats get a better view of Bruce.

“No,” Tony murmured. He could see how Steve might assume such a thing, but decided to feed both the blonds the truth: “He only got about three hours of sleep in the last three days and it’s starting to do a number on him.”

Steve paled, just a little. If Tony hadn’t seen him in other situations of varying upset, he’d have never noticed the change in hue. He had no doubt that Steve’s super selfless brain was catching up with him, twisting itself into knots of self-loathing given how he’d spent the last day playing in his and Barnes’ love nest rather than chewing at the beds of his fingernails, pacing the length of one of the villa’s hallways, and only picking at food in a vicious spurt of worry for their missing friend.

Tony felt bad. He did. Rogers was a good guy and things had been going tits up with Sharon for the last six months. Now, Barnes? Barnes was a Good Thing, completely deserving of capital letters. Tony had been around when Steve was long-distance lusting for the guy in high school, still no bigger than a sack of flour with a determination that could launch a new civilization. Steve deserved happiness—it just sucked such happiness landed in the midst of a really, really shitty set of circumstances.

“What can we do for you, Bruce?” Steve wondered. His voice was reserved, quiet.

It proved Tony had hit a bull’s-eye with his assumption.

“I think it’s time we call Nat,” Bruce grit out between his great retches. He braced a hand on the door of the car, knuckles white. “The wedding is at four, eastern standard time, with it being dawn there and almost eight here. The ride itself is _long_. Hell, even taking a private Stark jet would take five hours. That leaves us with very little time to get back to the city, find Clint, and make our way home.” He staggered back so he was on his ass rather than heaving on his knees. There was a shiny coat of sweat covering his face.

“I love my sister,” Bruce continued, taking on a glassy-eyed thousand yard stare. “She’s been with me through a lot more than you all could ever know. She’s never loved anyone like she loves Clint and it will break her heart if something happened to him on our watch.” He swallowed, throat jerking as though he were physically stamping down on another bout of sickness. “If something happened to him on _my_ watch.”

Steve climbed out of the car, catching Tony’s eye in the mirror over the dashboard before he did so. They exchanged a small nod. “Bruce, we’ve still got time. Though we don’t have much of it, we can go to the police—see if a little bribery can’t get us access to local security cameras around areas we were that night. It’s going to be alright.”

“Star Spangled Moobs with a ‘Tude is right,” Tony agreed, nodding thankfully at Steve’s consoling words. An ounce of tension seemed to be knocked off of Bruce’s shoulders.  

“So,” Thor said. “Who shall make the call, then?”

“Nose goes,” Steve blurted, slamming his finger against the tip of his crooked beak like the fucking child he was. Thor followed suit and though Bruce did not move, Tony was not heartless enough to force him to climb to his feet beneath the sharp eye of the sun to make what would no doubt be the most difficult phone call made in any of their lives.

Tony plucked his phone up from where he’d discarded it in the cup holder and stalked across the road where his only company was a dried out deer skull and a perky cactus that was shaped like a penis. He might have laughed if he didn’t feel like he, too, was going to vomit.

“Cowards,” he shouted over his shoulder, only half-heartedly.

A touch at the home button on the bottom of his device showed it was now after eight. They had less than twelve hours to do all Bruce had said and still make it home to the wedding. He brushed a thumb over the banner that appeared at the top of his screen: **Missed Call from _Black Widow_ (23)**. Tony brought the device to his ear and tried to remember the breathing exercises he’d learned to help Bruce through an anxiety attack when his Science Bro was trying to beat his alcohol fixation.

His mind, of course, blanked.

 _The worst part of it all_ , Tony thought, as the call finally went through and his phone rang once in his ear:

Pepper had warned him.

 

\-----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See ya'll next week :) <3 What are some scenes you'd like to see with Steve/Bucky or Steve & Rikki/Steve/Bucky & Rikki in the epilogue? I may include a few suggestions along with what I've got planned! I'd love to hear from you guys!!

**Author's Note:**

> Updates to come (:


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